This latest donation of $15 million is part of what the co-founder of Ethereum is doing to help pay for scientific research on COVID-19.
The Balvi Filantropic Fund, under the direction of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, has donated $15 million in USDC to the University of California San Diego for research into airborne pathogens.
According to UCSD, the donation is the biggest of its kind to a U.S. university and will be used to establish “The Airborne Institute,” a Meta-Institute for Airborne Disease in a Changing Climate.
Kimberly Prather, an atmospheric chemist and professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego said “Thank you Vitalik Buterin and Balvi for this opportunity to better understand the production, survival, and transport of airborne microbes in a changing climate worldwide.”
The newly established institution, according to UCSD, will focus on the study of airborne diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis, and COVID-19. Its ultimate objective is to develop new treatments, vaccines, and diagnostics for these diseases while increasing knowledge of their transmission.
Buterin said with regard to the development: “I am pleased to support the creation of this new institute at UC San Diego, which will work to grow our scientific knowledge about airborne disease and share it freely, enabling changes to infrastructure and policy that benefit people around the globe.”
Donations in crypto gather momentum
Since its inception, the Balvi fund has made two donations totaling over $15 million to more than ten coronavirus-related research initiatives.
Second update from Balvi!
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 8, 2022
Lots more anti-covid projects funded, thanks to funds from @Shibtoken @CryptoRelief_!
Previous update here:https://t.co/V4bZfZ2rOi
The University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, got the largest grant of $5.3 million to make a tool to find virus outbreaks early. In the past few years, the crypto community has helped raise money for a wide range of global causes.
