The Gerstner Family Foundation

In 2008, Louis V. Gerstner Jr. established the Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Scholars Program at VP&S. Designed to cultivate the next generation of leading physician-scientists in medicine and research. the program has named and funded 44 early career investigators as Gerstner Scholars; four of them also have received the Gerstner Merit Award.

This year we celebrated the program’s 10-year anniversary and its success, including the Gerstner Family Foundation’s extended support of the program with a new $5 million commitment. This gift will enable the Gerstner Scholars Program to continue to flourish, yielding high-impact research and discoveries in myriad clinical areas, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, and substance abuse disorders.

The Gerstner Merit Award was established in 2014 for an outstanding third year Gerstner Scholar whose research shows potential but has not yet received an independent investigator award. The Gerstner Merit Award makes scholars’ research sustainable over the long term, helping bridge the gap from scientific discovery in the lab to new therapies for patients.

Together, the Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Scholars Program and the Gerstner Merit Award have helped drive progress in academic medicine while supporting physician-scientists as they become independent, federally funded researchers. To date, in total, the Gerstner Scholars and Merit Awardees have garnered nearly $100 million in additional funding by leveraging their initial Gerstner grants.