Five years ago, Yale’s schools of Medicine and Public Health launched Founders Pledge, an initiative designed to engage health care and life sciences entrepreneurs as champions of research, education, and innovation. The pledge enabled startup founders to gift shares of their company to Yale at an early stage, so that when the startups are sold, cash from the sale can support ventures at Yale.
Michael Singer ’95, ’00 PhD, ’02 MD, the cofounder of Maryland-based Cartesian Therapeutics, gifted shares of his company to Yale in 2023. The structure of the gift offered Singer a tax advantage and, once Yale sold the shares, produced the resources to establish an endowed neuroscience professorship at the School of Medicine.
Singer’s $3 million gift honors the memory of his mentor, Gordon M. Shepherd, a trailblazer in brain circuitry research whose foundational work transformed our understanding of how the brain processes smell.
“We are so grateful to Dr. Michael Singer for his gift toward establishing an endowed professorship in neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine,” says Nancy J. Brown ’81, the Jean and David W. Wallace Dean of Yale School of Medicine. “This inaugural gift from a Founders Pledge member is a testament to Dr. Singer’s dedication to fostering research and education. His support will cultivate future leaders in neuroscience, embodying our shared commitment to scientific excellence and innovation.”