he University will join eight other research centres based at Harvard University and MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, which together form the Yang Tan Collective, created to focus research and translation approaches into human health, disease, and environmental challenges, especially engineering solutions to low-cost settings.
Of the $34.5 million, US$28 million will be used to create The K. Lisa Yang Centre for Autism Research at Cambridge. A further $6.5 million will enable the creation of The K. Lisa Yang Autism Clinical Centre, to be based in the new Cambridge Children’s Hospital, which is expected to complete construction in 2030.
Lisa Yang, philanthropist and founder of the Yang Tan Collective, said: “I am delighted to be bringing in Cambridge University as a core partner in the Yang Tan Collective, alongside the other two university partners of Harvard and MIT. The Collective is an alliance of world-class universities dedicated to cutting edge science, and two of the existing eight centres focus on accelerating autism research and improving outcomes for autistic people across their lifespan.
“My hope is that the three K. Lisa Yang Centres for Autism Research, in Cambridge UK, Harvard, and MIT will uncover therapeutics and interventions, improve quality of lives for autistic people, their families, and the community, with daring out-of-the-box and innovative thinking and research approaches that leverage the cross-border institutional talent pool in various disciplines in the Yang Tan Collective.”
Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge said: “We’re extremely grateful for Lisa’s support and the vote of confidence she has given to Professor Baron-Cohen and his team. Her funding has already been transformative in the US and succeeded in ensuring autism researchers from Harvard and MIT work together. With her support, our researchers will be able to exchange their expertise and knowledge with their peers in the ‘other’ Cambridge, making a real difference to the autism community.”
The donation is the largest single philanthropic gift to the University of Cambridge’s School of Clinical Medicine since its formation in 1976, reinforcing the School’s position as the UK’s top-ranked institution for Clinical Medicine in Times Higher Education’s most recent analysis of the Research Excellence Framework.
Majid Jafar, Co-Chair of the Cambridge Children's Hospital Fundraising Campaign, said: “Integrating the K. Lisa Yang Autism Clinical Centre within Cambridge Children’s Hospital will help transform the lives of autistic children and their families across the UK and globally. By bringing specialist expertise together in one dedicated setting, it will ensure autistic children receive timely, joined‑up care that recognises their individual strengths, supports their development, and helps them to thrive.”
The University of Cambridge was selected for this gift because of its world-class Autism Research Centre, which has existed there for almost 30 years. All three Centres will sit under a new Autism Research Institute and work closely together.
Professor Sir Simon Baron Cohen, Director of the new Autism Research Institute at Cambridge, said: “Lisa’s incredibly generous gift provides a powerful opportunity, through the Yang Tan Collective, to build on Cambridge’s long and proud history at the forefront of autism research. Working in close partnership with the autism community, it will help us translate bold new ideas more quickly into real-world impact, delivering tangible benefits that can significantly improve the quality of life for autistic people.”
The gift will create a sustainable, long-term funding base for autism research at Cambridge University, to support academic leadership, collaboration, and innovation. It will fund a critical mass of people and projects that underpin excellence, supporting the brightest and best young minds in the field of autism research to become tomorrow’s leaders, through the K. Lisa Yang Fellowships. They will bring fresh perspectives and disruptive ideas into neurodevelopmental research, accelerating progress towards tangible, long-term benefits for the autism community.
Research at The K. Lisa Yang Centre for Autism Research at Cambridge will look at the challenges faced by autistic people and their families, including why life-expectancy is lower among autistic people and looking for ways to identify and diagnose autism at an earlier stage, ensuring individuals are able to access the care and support as soon as they need it.
A structured partnership programme will also enable exchange, collaboration, and joint symposia with Harvard and MIT, bringing together the world’s foremost experts in autism research.
The K. Lisa Yang Autism Clinical Centre is a key part of the research vision of Cambridge Children’s Hospital. It will serve not only autistic people and their families but also clinicians, researchers, data scientists, and policy experts working collaboratively to improve outcomes. The Clinical Centre will provide evidence-based interventions that support children to grow into healthy, thriving adults, delivering transformative, life-course improvements for autistic individuals and their families.
This unique hospital, a partnership between the University of Cambridge, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, will care for children’s physical and mental health together, in a way that no hospital has ever done before. The hospital is at an advanced stage of planning, and Lisa Yang’s donation contributes to a £100 million philanthropic campaign to support the project.
Image: UrsaHoogle, Getty Images Signature, Canva
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
