‘Pay it forward’ to science, humankind during Virginia Tech Giving Day

Editor’s note: With Virginia Tech Giving Day 2022 beginning at noon, Feb. 23, a series of stories highlighting the impact of donations are featured on VTx this month.

Virginia Tech alumni Carol and Bill Seale believe investing in high-impact biomedical research now pays dividends for future generations.

Thanks to their generosity, all gifts made to the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute during Virginia Tech’s Giving Day, which runs for 24 hours starting Feb. 23, will help unlock up to $20,000 in additional match funding to the new Seale Innovation Fund, enabling Giving Day donors to double the effect of their investment in science and human health.

The Seale Innovation Fund helps cross-disciplinary research teams to pursue bold new ideas in science, gathering preliminary data needed to apply for larger, multi-year research grants.

“We feel this new fund can make a real impact by helping researchers jumpstart these innovative, high-risk, high-reward pilot concepts and take them to the next level,” Bill Seale said. “We’ve benefitted from past scientific discoveries and their contributions to modern medicine. Now we want to pay it forward.”

Seven research teams led by Fralin Biomedical Research Institute principal investigators are already benefitting from the Seale’s gift – but additional support during Giving Day will help to advance their innovative work even further.

All gifts made to the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute leading up to and during Virginia Tech Giving Day directly support future interdisciplinary research projects like these at Virginia Tech:

“Every day our scientists at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute are carrying out leading-edge research. This requires them to compete for high-level research grants and contracts to fuel new projects - but each of those projects began with an innovative idea and initial investment in gathering data in order to attain additional funding,” said Michael Friedlander, executive director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute and Virginia Tech’s vice president for health sciences and technology.

“The Seale Innovation Fund is a catalyst for bootstrapping just such innovative new research projects. We are extremely grateful to the Seales for their generous investment in science, ensuring us continued success, growth, and future positive impacts for humankind.”