Farewell frost!
October 30, 2024
EVANSTON, Ill. --- The Querrey Simpson Charitable Foundation has made an additional $15 million gift to Northwestern University in support of the University’s innovative, interdisciplinary research efforts applying nanotechnology to regenerative medicine.
In recognition of the new gift, the Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine (IBNAM) will be renamed the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine.
The $15 million gift is in addition to an earlier $10 million gift made by the Querrey Simpson Charitable Foundation to name the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Center for Regenerative Nanomedicine, which operates within the institute. Together, these gifts bring the foundation’s support of We will. The Campaign for Northwestern to a total of $25 million.
“The intersection of nanoscience and medicine is very exciting -- it is the place where real change can happen,” President Morton Schapiro said. “Support is critical to our success, and we are extremely grateful for this generous gift from Lou and Kimberly.”
Established in 2000, the institute draws clinicians, scientists and engineers from across the University to work together on the challenges of regenerative nanomedicine: using nanoscale technology or materials to seek ways to repair, replace or regenerate tissues or organs and to improve human health.
“Regenerative medicine is one of the great biomedical challenges of this century as we seek to regenerate parts of the human body lost to trauma, aging, disease and genetic factors,” said scientist Samuel I. Stupp, who has led the institute since the beginning. “We thank Lou and Kimberly for their generous and continued support of our pioneering research.”
The University’s world-renowned leadership in regenerative nanomedicine inspired the gift from Louis Simpson -- a Northwestern Board of Trustees member and a 1958 alumnus of the University’s Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences -- and his wife, Kimberly Querrey, through their foundation.
The foundation’s latest gift will be used to expand the institute’s facilities in the Technological Institute on the Evanston campus, facilitate translational efforts in regenerative medicine and broaden catalytic research grants, which are key to spurring high-risk research.
“Kimberly and I are excited to help Northwestern maintain its leading edge in nanoscience,” Simpson said.
“We are inspired by the institute’s focus on improving people's lives through new therapies,” Querrey added. “Professor Stupp and his colleagues are on an important quest to promote regeneration of tissues. Their work gives new hope to patients with spinal cord injuries, heart disease, cancer or Parkinson’s disease.”
The institute combines the expertise of Northwestern faculty members from Feinberg School of Medicine, the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences in a collaborative environment, fostering cross-disciplinary research initiatives that cannot take place in isolation.
“New technologies from physical sciences and engineering, coupled with knowledge in advanced cell biology, are required to make breakthroughs in regenerative medicine happen,” said Stupp, director of the institute and Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering and Medicine.
Simpson is chairman of SQ Advisors, LLC, an investment advisory firm. Previously, he was president and CEO of Capital Operations at GEICO Corporation.
Simpson has been a Northwestern Life Trustee since 2010 and was a National Trustee from 2006 to 2010. He serves on the Board of Trustees’ educational properties committee and investments committee, and is also a member of his class reunion committee.
Querrey is president of SQ Advisors. Previously, she was president of Querrey Enterprises, a consulting firm.
Simpson and Querrey also have contributed generously to Northwestern’s Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music.
The couple resides in Naples, Fla.
