On Wednesday, August 12, Tel Aviv University celebrated the inauguration of the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research. The new School, which belongs to the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, will be funded with a generous gift from the Shmunis family, enabling a leap in groundbreaking research. At the Shmunis School, researchers will be able to identify mechanisms that drive cancer and other diseases, developing new pharmaceuticals and improving patients’ quality of life. This will be achieved through multidisciplinary collaborations and novel research approaches, such as single cell sequencing, proteomics, lipidomics and bioinformatics.

“I am grateful to the Shmunis family for their important and generous gift,” said Prof. Ariel Porat, President of Tel Aviv University. He added, “The funds will enable researchers at the School to work at the forefront of global science and to develop insights leading to the development of new technologies and drugs in the battle against cancer and other serious diseases.”

The new partnership will enable the University to recruit the finest researchers into its faculty, attract the best post-doctoral candidates, award the annual Shmunis Fellowships to exceptional PhD students, and more. The School will also collaborate with many leading academic institutions and host Shmunis Visiting Scholars and international conferences.

The School is accoladed for its notable researchers who are seeking treatments and developments for cancer, COVID-19 and other diseases. Most recently, key research successes have included the Gershoni lab’s award of a US patent for a novel vaccine against the coronavirus and the Stern lab’s genetic sequencing of the coronavirus that enabled the tracking of the spread of COVID-19 in Israel.

Vlad and Sana Shmunis expressed the hope that the gift will help strengthen Israel’s standing as a global leader in cancer and molecular biomedical research. “My wife Sana and I are very happy that we can take part in supporting frontline research,” said Vlad Shmunis. He continued, “Cancer is a disease that has unfortunately touched our family and far too many other families around the world. We hope that our gift to TAU will significantly advance research and treatment of cancer and other serious diseases to improve the lives of people in Israel and around the world.”

This is the Shmunis family’s second major donation to the University, establishing the Shmunis Family Anthropology Institute in 2018 dedicated to the study of the ancient past. The Institute conducts numerous cutting-edge research projects in anthropology and archaeology on campus, helping to shed light on the origins of humankind.