In 2020, the schools of Medicine and Public Health at Yale launched an initiative to engage entrepreneurs in health care and the life sciences as supporters of research, education, and innovation at Yale. Founders Pledge, as the effort became known, provided a framework for the founders of startup companies to think about philanthropy at an early stage, before their business ventures have matured. Now, the first major gift resulting from that effort will establish a professorship in neuroscience at Yale.

Michael Singer, YC ’95, PhD ’00, MD ’02, the cofounder of Maryland-based Cartesian Therapeutics, gifted shares of the company to Yale in 2023. The gift provided a tax benefit for Singer and, upon sale of the shares by Yale, the cash to create an endowed fund that will support the salary and scientific work of a faculty member at Yale School of Medicine (YSM).

Recognizing a mentor

Singer made the $3 million gift in memory of his mentor, Gordon M. Shepherd, MD, DPhil, a pioneer in the field of brain circuitry whose long career established the basis for understanding how the brain manages our sense of smell. Shepherd, who died in 2022, was the author of more than 300 articles and eight books, including the influential 1974 text The Synaptic Organization of the Brain, now in its fifth edition, and two popular volumes on the neuroscience underlying our experience of food and wine. He served as editor in chief of both the Journal of Neuroscience and the Journal of Neurophysiology and, at Yale, as deputy provost for biomedical sciences among other leadership positions.

“We are so grateful to Dr. Michael Singer for his gift toward establishing an endowed professorship in neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine,” said Nancy J. Brown, MD, the Jean and David W. Wallace Dean of Yale School of Medicine. “This inaugural gift from a Founders Pledge member is a testament to Dr. Singer’s dedication to fostering research and education. His support will cultivate future leaders in neuroscience, embodying our shared commitment to scientific excellence and innovation.”

Singer met Shepherd in 1992, when he applied for a work-study job building computer models demonstrating the interactions of odor molecules with receptor proteins in the nervous system.

“He gave me a paper to read over winter break. I read it, he hired me, and I ended up staying on. That work-study job description pretty much became my PhD,” he says. Singer went on to earn three degrees from Yale: his bachelor’s in biology in 1995, his PhD with Shepherd in 2000, and his MD in 2002. Throughout his education, he remained close to Shepherd and his lab while exploring a diversity of interests including art history, archeology, international health, and language study. He became keenly interested in other cultures during his undergraduate years. “Gordon was very open to international collaboration and welcoming to students from other countries,” Singer says. In that spirit, he connected Singer to researchers in Germany, Brazil, and Israel. Singer also traveled to Pakistan on a Downs Fellowship to study the epidemiology of childhood injuries, having learned Urdu ahead of time. He also speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and Nahuatl, among others.

Entrepreneurial pursuits

After leaving Yale, Singer interned at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, then trained in ophthalmology at Harvard. After residency, he co-founded several enterprises, including Health Honors, a digital health company, and Topokine, which was sold to Allergan in 2016. A donation of shares of Topokine to Yale before that sale enabled Singer to make his first seven-figure gift.

That gift created two endowed funds establishing the Gordon Shepherd Lecture in Integrative Neuroscience and the Joshua C. Gibson Global Health Resource Fund, which sponsors scholars from less-developed countries to visit YSM. The global health fund and a third fund in cardiovascular research honor the memory of a classmate who passed away.

After selling Topokine, Singer and his partner, Murat Kalayoglu, MD, PhD, established Cartesian Therapeutics to develop cell therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases. The company currently has two drug candidates in trials for myasthenia gravis and lupus.

Joining Founders Pledge

Singer was the first to sign up for Founders Pledge, which now has 18 members from across the fields of biotechnology, drug development, medical devices, clinical practice, health care services, data science, and health education. The program is intended to engage our founder alumni and friends while starting a dialogue about philanthropy with entrepreneurs early in the arc of their business, before they even know if they will profit from an acquisition or initial public offering. Founders and their companies benefit through a closer connection to Yale, its faculty and other potential mentors, and a global network of entrepreneurs and business leaders who are committed to one day giving back to Yale.

“A key benefit is the relationship with Yale. It’s a continued relationship; it’s a community,” says Gena Lai, JD, YC ’95, senior director, complex gift management in the university’s Office of Development. “As much as the gift benefits Yale, being plugged into the Yale ecosystem is a very enlightening opportunity.” (Singer and Lai were delighted to collaborate on this gift, having started a friendship their first week as Yale College freshmen.)

A monthly newsletter and website connect members to talks and events (such as the Yale Innovation Summit, which brings hundreds of innovators to campus each May) and provide visibility for members by reporting on company news. Founders Pledge also provides channels to help with employee recruitment, often a focus for growing startups.

Singer has promoted Founders Pledge among his own networks and has enjoyed seeing the community grow: “It helps Yale in cultivating relationships long term with founders and key employees and showing them that there is more than one way to support Yale, that it doesn’t necessarily need to be a cash donation.”