UC San Diego Receives $15M Cryptocurrency Donation, Largest for Research on Airborne Pathogens

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In a time when viruses from SARS-CoV-2 to RSV and influenza have dominated the news cycle, concerns abound about airborne pathogens and pollutants. Key questions remain, such as: when microbes become airborne around us, how long do they survive? How far can they travel? How do variations in the environment such as humidity and temperature affect how long pathogens and pollutants remain viable? Do these factors play a role in how the respiratory system may be infected?  What is the distribution of airborne pathogens around the world?     

Researchers at the University of California San Diego will have the opportunity to dive deeper into such questions thanks to a $15 million gift made in USD coin (USDC) by the Balvi Filantropic Fund, directed by Vitalik Buterin, founder of one of the world’s leading blockchain networks, Ethereum. The gift establishes the Meta-Institute for Airborne Disease in a Changing Climate (“The Airborne Institute”) at UC San Diego.

Buterin’s donation is one of the largest cryptocurrency gifts made to a U.S. university, and to a University of California campus. It is the largest to date to fund open-source research on aerosols. The gift was exchanged into U.S. dollars through Engiven, a locally-based provider of cryptocurrency donation services to nonprofits.

“Over the last several years, it has become abundantly apparent that we need more open-source scientific research to better understand airborne pathogens and pollutants and how they affect us,” said Buterin. “I am pleased to support the creation of this new institute at UC San Diego, which will work to grow our scientific knowledge about airborne disease and share it freely, enabling changes to infrastructure and policy that benefit people around the globe.”

The Meta-Institute for Airborne Disease in a Changing Climate will represent a cross-campus collaboration, using expertise in varied fields to better understand aerosolized pathogens and their impact, which could include health issues such as allergies, asthma and systemic diseases spread by aerosol transmission, such as COVID-19.

“At UC San Diego, we translate discoveries into solutions,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “This generous, visionary gift will empower our world-class scientists and researchers to conduct collaborative, interdisciplinary studies of airborne diseases and pollutants with the potential to drive new discoveries to improve human health – all for the greater good.”

A multidisciplinary endeavor

The institute will be housed in the UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences, with researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the School of Physical Sciences leading the effort. Co-directors for the institute are Kim Prather, Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry and Distinguished Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego and Rommie Amaro, Distinguished Professor of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, section chair of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and co-director of the Visible Molecular Cell Consortium at UC San Diego. Prather is also the founding director of the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment (CAICE), which is focused on improving our understanding of how aerosol particles impact the environment, air quality and climate.