The Institute for Protein Innovation (IPI) has announced a $210 million gift from Moderna co-founder Tim Springer and his family to advance protein science and accelerate research to improve human health.

The gift to IPI—co-founded in 2017 by Springer, an immunologist at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, who became a billionaire following Moderna’s breakthrough development of a vaccine against the virus that causes COVID-19—will enable the institute to scale its current programs to develop high-quality research antibodies and other protein-based tools, advance protein science through investigator-driven research, and augment the education of life scientists. Springer previously made gifts to IPI totaling $40 million.

According to IPI, while market forces have rewarded the development of therapeutic antibodies to create blockbuster drugs, those efforts have not extended to the field of research antibodies, which are critical to understanding the biological mechanisms and molecular origins of human disease. To address the funding gap, IPI works to develop and produce the research antibodies needed to alleviate the bottleneck in the development of new drug therapies.

“Knowledge about proteins is critical to connect a gene to its function in the body,” said IPI president Ken Fasman. “Tim’s pioneering support makes it possible for IPI to harness the full power of protein science to extend the successes of genomics in understanding human disease.”

“I founded IPI on the premise that a foundry for protein tools, and most importantly antibodies, would help scientists make discoveries, and possibly new therapeutics, for years to come; my gift will help realize this vision,” said Springer. “IPI is my legacy project and recognizes the role that monoclonal antibodies have played in my discovery and basic research.”

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