Over the past 150 years, the average expected life span of a human has approximately doubled — largely due to biomedical research that you are likely to live a longer, healthier life. Why not consider being part of pay-it-forward, so that our children and successive generations have better health for longer periods of life?
By making a gift to NIPM, you can help revolutionize health care in our state. Support a NIPM project such as a new therapy that damages the HIV DNA in live cells. Make a difference in the treatment of hospital infections by helping us create a new drug to prevent the spread of bacteria. Help us develop a new genetic screening technology so that it can save lives through early detection and prevention. Support a small project on a new idea that can leverage preliminary results into big federal funding. Be part of an effort to quickly pursue exciting concepts that could have huge impacts on our lives in the future.
We are fortunate to have a team that has attracted state and federal grant funding from many sources, but government dollars just don’t stretch far enough in this world of cutting-edge science. The amount of government funding available also continues to shrink even as the need for scientific research expands; right now, only 1 in 10 U.S. research projects that apply for federal funds is accepted. The need for investment in science by individuals, corporations, and foundations continues to grow for all universities – and particularly for their newest ventures, such as NIPM.
Contact
If you would like to explore any of these ways to make a significant donation to NIPM, please contact:
Kara Peterson
Director of Development
UNLV College of Sciences
702-895-3488
kara.peterson@unlv.edu
For information on how you can help with bringing NIPM breakthroughs to market, please contact:
Dr. Martin R. Schiller
NIPM Executive Director
martin.schiller@unlv.edu
Thanks to Our NIPM Supporters
NIPM is grateful for the generous donations received from our supporters
Sher Fertility Clinic
Sher Fertility Clinic donated equipment for use by faculty, staff, students in NIPM labs.
Prabhu Endowment
Dr. Nick Spirtos /Doctor's Holdings provided a generous donation to establish the Prabhu Endowed Professorship and provided additional funds to support research.
Scientific Equipment & Lab Supply Vendors
The following scientific equipment and lab supply vendors provided donations to support our annual NIPM Symposium, where faculty and students give presentations about current research.
More Info
Many of our faculty have federally-funded research grants, so why do we need donations? Donations are critical to scientific research because research is expensive. Private funding can help with the timely hiring and the continued support of faculty, postdoctoral fellows and students. There are costs to purchase, repair, and update scientific equipment, and for supplies to perform research. While we consider it a privilege to use public funding to conduct research, there are several limitations that truly limit the pace of federally-funded research.
Private funding can help provide “bridge” dollars, mitigating the long lead times in federal funding. We also need funds for small projects on new ideas to help obtain preliminary results so that they are competitive for federal funding. Then, when a federal grant is obtained it is specifically targeted on a single project. New exciting ideas that arise during the research are unfortunately often given low priority and added to a wish list for the scientist’s future work. Exciting high-risk projects that are likely to have larger impacts are better supported through private donations.
Your Support Can Help
- Scientists spend more time on projects
- The pursuit of high-risk, high-impact projects
- New capabilities by purchase of the most modern equipment
- Fund an enthusiastic trainee
Your gift, no matter what the size, will help build excellence that cannot be reached solely by state support and federal grants alone. For example, your contribution can be used to hire a faculty with critical cutting-edge expertise or help student or postdoctoral fellow focus on a groundbreaking research project.
As a maturing Institute, NIPM has many opportunities for you to get involved in a major way. With an endowment, the income from your gift provides funding in perpetuity for a particular program; with an outright gift, you are supporting that program or project on a one-time basis.
Some of the areas you may consider for significant support, that carry the possibility of naming, include:
Named Endowed Lecture ($50,000)
We run a seminar series where we invite well-known scientists to visit UNLV and bring us up-to-date on key recent developments in personalized medicine. Naming of the seminar series is also available.
Named Undergraduate Summer Fellowship ($100,000)
At UNLV, we have many undergraduate students that are interested in a career in research and/or medicine. These fellowships will be awarded to our best students to allow them time to focus on their research training, gaining unique experience while working directly in their field. This research experience can be considered one of the best values in higher education.
Named Endowed Graduate Fellowship ($750,000)
Graduate students often have to spend time teaching laboratory courses to help pay their way through graduate school. Research graduate fellowships will be awarded to our best students and help them focus on their research.
Named Personalized Medicine Research Endowment ($100,000)
These endowments provide stable funds for a researcher who has achieved excellence in their scientific studies, and helps their research by providing consistent funding for supplies, equipment, and student support, as well as funding faculty time to work on a high-impact project.
Named Endowed Personalized Medicine Chair ($1,000,000)
These donations are for an established professor to fund high risk high-impact projects with the potential to advance our knowledge in the area of personalized medicine.
Annual Retreat Sponsorship ($2,500 and up)
Ideal for commercial sponsors, these donations help to bring together scientists and the community in an annual research event. There are also opportunities for named posters and talk awards for students.
Planned Giving
A gift over time can provide continued support for a research period. For example, a planned gift could help support such activities as funding the entire academic journey of a Ph.D. student, or a clinical trial where we plan to sequence several genomes over a multiyear period as patients are recruited.
For more information on planned gifts, please contact Bud Beekman at the UNLV Foundation, at 702-895-2841 or harry.beekman@unlv.edu.
Named Endowed Institute ($5,000,000)
Please contact Scott Roberts if you are interested in a large contribution and would like the legacy of having the institute named after you or a loved one.
In biomedicine, many scientists devote their lives to advancing science. This has paid off in a big way. At NIPM, we’re standing on the very frontiers of biomedicine, where the possibility of having better health for everyone, for longer periods of life, is becoming more real every moment. Help us change the human journey. Please consider a gift to NIPM today.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Lab Materials | $50-100 |
| Chemicals | $50-500 |
| Agarose for DNA gels (A matrix material used to separate DNA for analysis)
|
$250 |
| PCR kit (A kit with enzymes and reagents to take a single molecule of DNA and amplify it to make billions upon billions of copies) | $250 |
| DNA Purification Kit (A kit to purify DNA from a sample, such as blood or saliva that can then be analyzed) | $250 |
| Exome Capture Kit (A kit used to select the most important part of a genome so that it can be sequenced)
|
$200 |
| Exome Sequence (Sequencing of the most important part of the genome where most variants associated with human health are found) | $800 |
| Equipment | |
| Centrifuge (A machine that spins samples at many times the force of gravity used to purify molecules like DNA)
|
$10,000 |
| PCR Machine (A machine used to make copies of DNA)
|
$6,000 |
| Superlow Lab Freezer (A very cold freezer used to store clinical specimens) | $9,000 |
| Service Contract for Sequencing Machine | $10-25,000/year |
| MiSeq DX Sequencing Machine
|
$125,000 |
| NextSeq Sequencing Machine
|
$250,000 |
| HiSeq DNA Sequencing Machine (An exome is the part of a persons genome where all mutations occur. Each machine scales to sequence more exomes. The MiSeq can sequence one exome/day, the NextSeq can sequence 40 exomes/day, the HiSeq can sequence 80 exomes/day, and the HiSeq X Ten can sequence 200 exomes/day)
|
$750,000 |
| HiSeq xTen Sequencing Machine | $10,000,000 |
| Students and Personnel | |
| Undergraduate Fellowship
|
$5,000/year |
| Graduate Fellowship
|
$30,000/year |
| Research Technician
|
$35,000/year |
| Endowments | |
| Named Endowed Lecture
|
$125,000 |
| Named Research Endowment
|
$100,000 and up |
| Named Graduate Fellowship
|
$750,000 |
| Named Undergraduate Fellowship
|
$100,000 |
| Named Endowed Chair
|
$1,000,000 |
| Named Institute
|
$5,000,000 |
The Nevada Institute for Personalized Medicine generates novel intellectual property and commercial opportunities, in addition to its mission in establishing a genomics infrastructure and source of information for Nevada citizens.
In late 2016, a spinoff company – Heligenics LLC – was established with several first-generation NIPM innovations.
Learn more about the news story
Further innovations are expected, and will be available for commercialization either directly from the UNLV Office of Economic Development or through Heligenics.
Please contact James Timmins or Dr. Martin Schiller for more information.
U.S. Trademark and Patent Office (USPTO) Patents
CamSA, a prophalactyic for preventing Clostridium difficile infection
New USPTO Filings
High throughput functional screen with chimeric mini motif decoys
New submission to USPTO
Previous USPTO Filings
Scientific definitions tool
Genome surgery, a new approach for curing HIV