Your generosity is fueling research that brings hope to patients and families facing cancer.
Each gift provides Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center with the necessary resources to provide leading edge research and the very best in cancer care to patients and their families. We address medicine not just at the cellular level but at the personal level.
Individually, each person can make a difference; collectively, the many friends of the Abramson Cancer Center help shape the future of cancer research and patient care.
Tribute to founding donor Leonard Abramson (1932–2026)
Among Penn’s most generous and influential benefactors, Madlyn (Ed’57, GEd’60) and Leonard Abramson founded the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, were early pioneers in funding basic science and cancer immunotherapy, and established several endowed professorships — culminating with the naming of the Abramson Cancer Center in their honor in 2002.
Leonard started from humble beginnings: born in the Strawberry Mansion section of Philadelphia, he drove a taxi to pay for his pharmacy degree. Leonard launched one of the first health maintenance organizations, U.S. Healthcare, in 1975, which he sold to Aetna in 1996. He was listed as one of the “Great American Business Leaders of the 20th Century” by Harvard Business School. But his business acumen never outshone his philanthropy, which extended to various healthcare centers across the Philadelphia region, his home away from home in Jupiter, Florida, and Jewish organizations and educational associations.
Leonard’s life is an inspiring example of what can be achieved with a combination of vision, determination, and compassion. His legacy is vast, but for Penn Medicine, his name will always be synonymous with hope.
The Abramson family and Penn Medicine invite you to honor and support Leonard and Madlyn’s legacy with your own contribution.