Richard King Mellon Foundation Institute for Pediatric Research

The Richard King Mellon Foundation Institute for Pediatric Research is designed to further elevate Pittsburgh’s position as one of the world’s leading centers for pioneering research in child health. 

The Institute will enable scientists to aggressively pursue that goal by building and equipping a new laboratory unit for research in molecular and cellular biology, by adding to the existing deep pool of faculty talent through the recruitment of additional pediatric scientists of international stature, and by supporting the most promising work of those scientists.

The Richard King Mellon Foundation Institute will include the laboratories of an internationally recognized scientific director and five exceptionally talented scholars. Startup and continuous funding together with state-of-the-art core facilities will foster high-risk, high-impact projects and encourage the Institute’s researchers to pursue their most innovative ideas. For the scholar positions, the Institute will focus on pediatric physician-scientists at early stages in their careers and whose research will have a long-lasting influence on various areas of pediatric medicine.

“We envision this Institute as an incubator for research that challenges conventional wisdom and leads to paradigm shifts in pediatric medicine,” said David Perlmutter, MD, physician-in-chief and scientific director, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and the Vira I. Heinz Professor and chair of the Department of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “The timing with which we are establishing this Institute is exquisitely important. The pressures that have evolved from the decline in funds available from the National Institutes of Health could severely affect the career development of pediatric scientists.”

Dr. Perlmutter added, “Further, we are in an era in which the potential for making major advances in understanding pediatric disease as well as preventive and therapeutic strategies is unprecedented.  This Institute is designed to provide the infrastructure and resources to make discoveries that could significantly impact child health and to foster the careers of a cadre of pediatric scientists who will become the next generation of international leaders in child health research.”

The Institute will apply some of the concepts first used by the renowned Howard Hughes Medical Institute to fund areas of basic science that have had a profound effect on our understanding of human disease. 

The Richard King Mellon Foundation Institute for Pediatric Research, which will be housed in the Richard King Mellon Foundation Molecular and Cellular Biology Research Unit, will be physically located in research facilities now being constructed on the new campus of Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC in Lawrenceville. Its faculty and programs will be a part of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.