The event raised funds and awareness for the HudsonAlpha Foundation’s new Innovation Fund

Thank you to everyone who supported the 2023 Spring Benefit! This year’s benefit would not have been possible without our generous Principal sponsor, Intrepid, our Genome sponsor, Adtran, our Discovery sponsor, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, our DNA and Premier sponsors, and our Friends of the Institute!

The HudsonAlpha Foundation’s annual Spring Benefit brought together members of the community, state and local officials, and HudsonAlpha leadership to celebrate the Institute’s 15th anniversary and raise funds for the Innovation Fund.

The annual event is one of the HudsonAlpha Foundation’s largest fundraisers and is intended to raise support for different Institute research programs each year. This year, the Spring Benefit introduced HudsonAlpha donors and supporters to the Innovation Fund, a new fund designed to drive the Institute’s most transformative programs, impactful breakthroughs, and pivotal opportunities by providing strategic access to unrestricted funds. Donations raised in support of the Innovation Fund exceeded the Foundation’s fundraising goal for the event.

After kicking the evening off with an introduction by emcee Payton Walker, of Tennessee Valley Living on WAFF 48, and a toast offered by Danny Windham, HudsonAlpha Chief Operations Officer, guests heard from Brian Pollock, Chairman of the Board of the Directors, Rick Myers, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer and M. A. Loya Chair in Genomics, and Neil Lamb, PhD, President. Pollock, Myers, and Lamb reflected on HudsonAlpha’s early days, provided updates about HudsonAlpha’s current scientific research, and shared a vision for what HudsonAlpha will accomplish in the next fifteen years and beyond through support of the Innovation Fund.

Resources donated to the Innovation Fund are put to immediate use to support HudsonAlpha’s talent, improve and advance technology, seed promising new ideas, scale groundbreaking programs, and train the next generation of STEM leaders. 

Early support of the Innovation Fund has already made it possible for HudsonAlpha to purchase a new PacBio Revio DNA sequencer through the Innovation Fund. New gifts made to the Innovation Fund will help support the purchase of a second Revio, fuel HudsonAlpha’s graduate and post-doctoral trainee program, and attract new faculty members, as well as other projects that are deemed critical for HudsonAlpha’s growth and continued success.

Learn more about the Innovation Fund, and consider making a gift today to help fuel life-changing research.

Photos of this year’s Spring Benefit are available at this link.