$31 million latest gift to medical center by Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg lifts their giving to institution to over $60 million

Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg have committed $31 million to UCLA, a gift that lands squarely at the intersection of medicine, philanthropy and legacy-building, and that pushes the couple’s cumulative giving to the university to $60 million.

The commitment, made through the Ginsburgs and their own research foundation, is directed to UCLA Health, the David Geffen School of Medicine and the emerging UCLA Research Park, a 700,000-square-foot biomedical hub taking shape in Westwood.

Allen Ginsburg is a retired ophthalmologist who completed his residency at UCLA in 1963 before building a long career in real estate entrepreneurship; Charlotte Ginsburg is a performing arts patron. The two have been married for more than 45 years and live on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Their philanthropy is not new to the campus: in 2021 the couple gave $29 million to establish the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Center for Precision Genomic Medicine within UCLA’s Institute for Precision Health, a gift that also created the Ginsburg Research Fellowship and an annual symposium on population genetics and ethics.

Their generosity extends beyond UCLA as well — in 2018, the couple gave $10 million to the University of Southern California, naming the USC Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics to support research into neurosensory diseases.

The new $31 million commitment is structured across three priorities.

Eleven million dollars will create the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Fund for Graduate Student Support, aimed squarely at the vulnerable transition point between doctoral training and faculty life.

The fund will subsidize research costs, tuition, books and housing for graduate students, doctoral trainees and postdoctoral candidates, with recipients selected by the Geffen School of Medicine through competitive review and recognized as Ginsburg Scholars or Fellows.

Another $10 million establishes the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Biomedical Frontiers Fund, which the medical school dean will use to convene a selection committee awarding research funding to promising investigators and teams drawn from the Geffen School of Medicine, the university’s quantum innovation hub, and the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy — all of whom will carry out their work inside the Research Park.

The remaining $10 million goes toward the park’s capital needs, financing laboratories and equipment that will underpin the science planned there.

“Charlotte and I believe that science plays an outsized role in clinical care,” Allen Ginsburg said in the university’s announcement.

“Our gift seeks to ensure that the generations who follow have the resources, tools and mentors to continue to advance human health and well-being. The UCLA Research Park is the latest example of UCLA’s focus on generating discoveries that benefit patients everywhere.”

Charlotte Ginsburg pointed to the family’s research foundation as the mechanism for extending that intent indefinitely: “This is also why we have created the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Research Foundation: so that our investment in research and innovation in Southern California will live on beyond our lifetimes”.

University leaders framed the gift as both timely and structural. “Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg’s visionary contribution to the David Geffen School of Medicine and the UCLA Research Park will have a transformative impact,” said UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk.

“Their generosity supports our acceleration of breakthrough research into real-world solutions — deepening collaboration across disciplines, feeding innovation, and strengthening our ties with industry and the broader community.” Dr. John Mazziotta, vice chancellor of UCLA Health Sciences and CEO of UCLA Health, who was instrumental in securing the Research Park site and standing up the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, singled out the gift’s focus on early-career scientists: “Their commitment will help us champion scientific investigators and their work at every turn, where aspiring faculty face the most imposing challenges of their young careers: building a research team and portfolio. The Ginsburgs understand this talent bottleneck and confront it directly with comprehensive support.” Dr. Steven Dubinett, dean of the Geffen School of Medicine, called the gift a model of how “vision and generosity can accelerate discovery,” adding that it “underscores the essential role of philanthropy in advancing science and cultivating the next generation of innovators.”

In recognition of the couple’s combined $60 million in support, UCLA will name three spaces within the Research Park after them: the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Foyer, the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Paseo, and the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Innovation Bridge.

The gift lands alongside other major philanthropy flowing into the same Research Park campus, including the $120 million commitment from Gary and Alya Michelson that established the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy there, underscoring how a handful of long-committed donor families are shaping what UCLA hopes will become one of the country’s most consequential biomedical research corridors.