SNF Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos honored by The Rockefeller University
At a recent event focused on Accelerating Discoveries in a Golden Age of Biomedicine at New York’s Rockefeller University, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos received Rockefeller’s 2023 Enlightened Philanthropy Award. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg offered a few words in recognition of Andreas’s award, offering a perspective from their long friendship on the impact of Andreas’s philanthropic leadership.
The event also featured a panel with leading Rockefeller University scientists—Nobel laureate Charles Rice, immunologist Michel Nussenzweig, Rockefeller Hospital physician-in-chief Barry Coller, neurobiologist Cori Bargmann, and Rockefeller President Richard Lifton—who discussed recent advances in biomedicine and areas in which they foresee forthcoming breakthroughs. There was consensus that they are optimistic for greater understanding of neurodegenerative diseases and the development of new treatments for them.
In a personal capacity, Andreas, who is a Trustee of The Rockefeller University, is a supporter of Rockefeller outreach and community engagement programs that promote STEM learning for young people, focus on community health priorities, and more.
Under his leadership, SNF has partnered with Rockefeller on a variety of initiatives designed to boost scientific research with the potential to improve human life. Most recently, the SNF Institute for Global Infectious Disease Research, directed by Dr. Rice and co-directed by Drs. Nussenzweig and Coller, seeks to combat emerging and established pathogens by closing gaps between disciplines, between research and application, and between scientists and the public. The SNF Institute grew out of SNF’s support for Rockefeller’s COVID-19 research early in the pandemic.
Rockefeller’s physical infrastructure has also been transformed in collaboration with SNF, with two acres of state-of-the-art facilities added in 2019 with the opening of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation – David Rockefeller River Campus. The partnership between the two institutions stretches back more than two decades, when SNF made grants toward Rockefeller’s Women & Science Initiative.
