Ralph Brinster, VMD, PhD, talks with Jamie Shuda, EdD, at the Ralph L. Brinster Symposium.
The Ralph and Elaine Brinster family has given much to the Penn Medicine community. From awarding esteemed prizes to global leaders in biomedicine to creating opportunities for high school students with disadvantaged backgrounds to participate in science programming, their generosity is far-reaching.
Their latest philanthropic gift establishes the Ralph and Elaine Redding Brinster High School Bioscience Outreach Fund at the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM). The endowed fund will support PSOM’s BioEYES Program, which fosters enthusiasm for science by offering local K-12 students hands-on learning opportunities to explore life science through real-world applications.
The new fund will provide resources to transport local high school students to the annual Ralph L. Brinster Symposium and presentation of the Elaine Redding Brinster Prize in Science or Medicine. The fund will also support related science programming for high schools in Ridley, PA, and West Philadelphia.
Ralph L. Brinster, VMD, PhD, is a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. Brinster is a National Medal of Science laureate and the Richard King Mellon Professor of Reproductive Physiology. He is acknowledged as one of the seminal founders of the field of mammalian transgenesis. Elaine Brinster served as a nurse for more than a decade at Philadelphia General Hospital in West Philadelphia.
A history of giving
The Brinster family has a history of generous giving to Penn Medicine.
In 2019, the Brinster children established the Elaine Redding Brinster Prize in Science or Medicine with a generous $1.5 million gift. Two years later, the family donated an additional $1 million to create the annual Ralph L. Brinster Symposium, a celebration of breakthrough science across the spectrum of biomedical research.
The symposium, co-sponsored by the deans of PSOM and the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and organized by the Institute for Regenerative Medicine (IRM) at Penn Medicine, invites a select group of global leaders in biomedicine to the university to present their research each year. Awarded during the symposium, the prize recognizes an awardee for their outstanding discovery and its major impacts on biomedicine.
This year’s Elaine Redding Brinster Prize winner was Stuart H. Orkin, MD, from Harvard Medical School. Recognized for landmark discoveries of the molecular basis of blood disorders and for using basic science findings in the development of therapeutic approaches, Orkin laid the foundation for the molecular study of blood cell formation. This led to the approved treatments for sickle cell disease and thalassemia.
A prestigious and inclusive event
Students from Ridley High School listen to the lecture by Stuart H. Orkin, MD, winner of the Elaine Redding Brinster Prize.
The 2024 Ralph L. Brinster Symposium, held at the Smilow Center for Translational Research, embodied the spirit of the family’s philanthropy.
For the first time since the symposium’s inception, high school students were able to attend the event in person. Thanks to the inspiring efforts of PSOM Director of Outreach, Education, and Research Jamie Shuda, EdD, a group of 30 interested AP biology students from Elaine Redding Brinster’s alma mater, Ridley High School, were transported to campus for a day filled with hands-on science.
The students toured two labs in Smilow, attended Orkin’s lecture, and participated in a Q&A session. Students expressed their excitement about the event, noting they enjoyed meeting graduate students, finding connections between their classes and the “real world,” and visiting the labs.
Shuda responded, emphasizing the importance of trying new opportunities and working with others. “There needs to be collaboration in order to be successful,” she said. “You learn from each other.”
Elaine Brinster noted it was “gratifying to see how many students were interested in and attended the event.”
Leading up to the symposium, students from Ridley High School were treated to a lecture from IRM faculty members Eugene Khandros, MD, PhD, and Scott Alan Peslak, MD, PhD, to prepare the group for the keynote lecture. In the future, this opportunity will be funded by the Ralph and Elaine Redding Brinster High School Bioscience Outreach Fund.
In addition to Orkin, the symposium featured several eminent speakers from across the biomedical sciences, including Titia de Lange, PhD, from the Rockefeller University; Carla Shatz, PhD, from Stanford University; Alejandro Sànchez Alvarado, PhD, from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research; and Marianne Bronner, PhD, from California Institute of Technology.