RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — A $104 million gift has made history as the largest gift ever given to Virginia Commonwealth University and is the largest publicly shared gift given specifically for liver research in U.S. history, according to the university.

VCU said in a release that the donation from R. Todd Stravitz, M.D. and his family’s Barbara Brunckhorst Foundation will provide the ability to radically expand treatment options for liver and liver-related metabolic diseases.  

“Todd has made history with his incredible leadership and generosity to VCU, supporting an institute that will forever change VCU and catalyze its commitment to our work with the human liver and metabolism,” said Michael Rao, Ph.D., president of VCU and VCU Health. “This gift firmly puts the needs of patients first.”

Stravitz is a physician-philanthropist in the Department of Internal Medicine at VCU School of Medicine. Before retiring in 2020, Stravitz dedicated his career as a liver clinician and researcher to VCU and served as medical director of liver transplantation at VCU Health’s Hume-Lee Transplant Center for ten years. “This is a moment at VCU when our aspiration is an absolute match to our ability,” Rao said at a State of the University event Tuesday. “The very real fact is that the liver has tremendous bearing on human health and it has not been the focus like it should be.”

The school said the impressive donation will position VCU as a “global leader” in much-needed liver disease and metabolic health research, teaching and patient care.

Nicknamed the “silent killer,” the Cleveland Clinic reports that one in ten Americans have some type of liver disease, and about 5.5 million people in the U.S. have chronic cases. The disease can go unnoticed until a liver transplant is the only treatment option, and is one of the top ten factors reducing life expectancy in the U.S.

“It allows us to bring together top teams to deliver clinical care, to ask important questions, develop new tools to explore what causes liver disease and how we stop it, prevent it and even reverse it,” Rao said in the release. “Most importantly, it will immediately make a difference in the lives of thousands of people with liver disease. Ultimately, this will positively impact millions.”

Over time with the donation VCU Health expects to be able to serve twice the number of patients for liver-related illnesses through its newest institute, the Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health, launched in December 2021.

“Why now? Because we are really in a cusp of tremendous research oriented advancement in medicine,” Dr. Stravitz said.

VCU professor and researcher Dr. Arun Sanyal will head the institute. “There’s a popular perception that if you have liver disease, you must have done it to yourself but that’s not true,” he said.

There’s no home for the institute just yet. A location and the official name are both in the works.