Michael Singer ’95, ’00 PhD, ’02 MD co-founded Cartesian Therapeutics in 2016. The Maryland-based company develops cell therapies for autoimmune diseases. In 2023, as part of the Founders Pledge program, Singer gifted shares of the company to Yale; with proceeds from those shares, Yale was recently able to endow a permanent chair in the Department of Neuroscience.
Yale’s Founders Pledge is a framework for engaging entrepreneurs in healthcare and the life sciences as supporters of research, education, and innovation at the Yale School of Medicine or Yale School of Public Health. It guides leaders to think about philanthropy at an early stage of their business ventures. Founders and their companies benefit through a closer connection to Yale, its faculty and other potential mentors, and a global network of entrepreneurs and business leaders who are committed to one day giving back to Yale.
The first major donor through the Founders Pledge program, Singer has named his professorship in memory of his mentor, Gordon M. Shepherd. Shepherd, who died in 2022, taught at Yale for over fifty years, and was a pioneer in the field of brain circuitry. His career established the basis for understanding how the brain manages our sense of smell.
“We are so grateful to Dr. Michael Singer,” says Nancy J. Brown, 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.”
Cartesian Therapeutics has developed drug candidates for treating myasthenia gravis and lupus, chronic autoimmune diseases. Singer also co-founded other enterprises, including HealthHonors, a digital health company, and Topokine, which was sold to Allergan in 2016.
‘Very Special Attributes’
In 1992, Singer applied as a sophomore for a work-study job with Shepherd to build computer models focused on the body’s olfactory system. He continued that work for his PhD.
“Gordon Shepherd had very special attributes as a faculty member—humility, collegiality, moral principle, and a focus on the people he was training, rather than on himself,” Singer says.
Jessica Cardin has been named the first Gordon M. Shepherd Professor of Neuroscience. Before Shepherd’s retirement, her lab and office were just across the hall from his.
“It’s an incredible honor to be named the first Gordon Shepherd professor,” Cardin says. “I miss Gordon terribly. He was such a wonderful influence, and he did some incredibly elegant, in-depth experimental and computational work that set the stage for more recent neuroscience.”
Taking the Pledge
“The Founders Pledge helps Yale in cultivating relationships long term with founders and key employees,” Singer says. “It shows them that there is more than one way to support Yale, that it doesn’t necessarily need to be a cash donation.”
For Cardin, the support that this kind of gift offers is crucial.
“To have a new endowed professorship is a vote of confidence in the science,” Cardin says. “It shows that people value rigorous science and the intellectual enterprise enough to support it.”
And, she says, such support from donors allows researchers like her to “take some chances and pursue big ideas. Historically, the riskier, bigger ideas are the ideas that have changed the world.”