{"entity":{"id":"leonard-abramson","kind":"person","name":"Leonard Abramson","aka":["Leonard and Madlyn Abramson"],"tldr":"In 1997 he and his wife Madlyn, a cancer survivor, gave the University of Pennsylvania the gift that created the Abramson Cancer Center, where CAR-T therapy was later developed.","summary":"Leonard Abramson (1932-2026) founded the health maintenance organisation U.S. Healthcare and, with his wife Madlyn (who died in 2020 and had herself been treated for cancer), made a December 1997 gift to the University of Pennsylvania that created the Abramson Cancer Center and its research institute. Published figures for the gift differ between sources, so none is given here. The family also funded the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Pediatric Research Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and professorships at Penn and Johns Hopkins. The Abramson Cancer Center became the home of Carl June's CD19 CAR-T programme, whose first paediatric patient, Emily Whitehead, was treated across the street at CHOP in 2012; it is now an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centre.","asOf":"2026-09-10","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Abramson","links":[{"label":"Penn Medicine: remembering Madlyn Abramson","url":"https://www.pennmedicine.org/cancer/about/remembering-madlyn-abramson"}],"tags":["hero","donor"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["car-t"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["penn-abramson","chop"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":["carl-june","emily-whitehead"],"bottlenecks":["b-funding-allocation"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"U.S. Healthcare founder whose 1997 gift created Penn's Abramson Cancer Center","specialisms":["Cancer centre building","Paediatric cancer research"],"profiles":[],"papers":[]},"route":"/people/leonard-abramson/","neighbours":{"technology":[{"id":"car-t","kind":"technology","name":"CAR-T cell therapy","route":"/technologies/car-t/"}],"institution":[{"id":"penn-abramson","kind":"institution","name":"Abramson Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania","route":"/institutions/penn-abramson/"},{"id":"chop","kind":"institution","name":"Children's Hospital of Philadelphia","route":"/institutions/chop/"}],"person":[{"id":"carl-june","kind":"person","name":"Carl H. June","route":"/people/carl-june/"},{"id":"emily-whitehead","kind":"person","name":"Emily Whitehead","route":"/people/emily-whitehead/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-funding-allocation","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Funding follows fashion, not burden","route":"/bottlenecks/b-funding-allocation/"}]}}