The University of California, San Francisco has announced a $10 million gift from the foundation of former Facebook president and Napster co-founder Sean Parker to create a research laboratory devoted to studying autoimmune diseases.

The gift from the Parker Foundation will establish and support efforts at the Sean N. Parker Autoimmune Research Laboratory, a center within the Diabetes Center at UCSF, that could lead to new treatments for autoimmune diseases ranging from type 1 diabetes to multiple sclerosis to rheumatoid arthritis. To be led by Jeffrey A. Bluestone, the lab will seek to accelerate and expand research based on the concept of immune tolerance aimed at advancing the discovery of novel therapies for organ transplant rejection and autoimmunity. Rather than suppressing immune function — the mode of action in many drugs  targeting autoimmunity — immune tolerance therapies aim to halt or prevent autoimmune diseases while preserving the immune system’s disease-fighting capabilities.

More than eighty autoimmune diseases currently affect as many as twenty-two million Americans, with the annual cost of treating such diseases estimated at $100 billion. "I believe that it is critical to significantly expand our understanding of autoimmune disease mechanisms in order to accelerate the development of new therapies that improve treatments and reduce costs," said Parker. "I’m confident that, under the leadership of Dr. Bluestone, this research initiative will transform our approach to autoimmune diseases and result in improved outcomes for millions of patients."

Earlier this year, Parker donated $4.5 million to UCSF's  Malaria Elimination Initiative, while in 2014 he gave $24 million to the Stanford University School of Medicine to establish a center for allergy research.

"The progress over the past two decades in our understanding of the immune dysregulation that results in autoimmunity has been extraordinary and points us in the direction of immune regulation as a direct target for disease intervention," said Bluestone. "This gift truly inspires us to tackle the biggest challenges in immune tolerance in the autoimmunity setting and will ensure that critical advances can be achieved more rapidly in the lab and translated to new treatments for the millions around the world with these harmful conditions."