The Gibbs Foundation has committed $4.5 million to establish a permanent endowment at the University of Louisville supporting lung disease research, transplant innovations and the training of future medical researchers, according to The Lane Report. The gift creates the Gibbs Foundation Endowment in the UofL School of Medicine and fulfills a five-year pledge established in 2022.

The partnership between the foundation and university has spanned nearly a decade, focusing on ex vivo lung perfusion, a process that allows lungs to be maintained and evaluated outside the body, as well as research aimed at improving outcomes for patients with acute and chronic respiratory conditions. The endowment is based at UofL's Cardiovascular Innovation Institute, where the relationship between the two entities began in 2016.

Prior Gibbs Foundation support has helped UofL researchers develop a negative-pressure ventilator system with potential for clearing infections from pneumonic lungs outside the body. Researchers plan to use the technology to rehabilitate infected lungs and partner with a local organ procurement organization to evaluate lungs previously rejected for transplantation due to pneumonia. If successful, the work could expand the pool of lungs potentially available for transplantation.

The research program is also pursuing breath-analysis technology designed to predict which cardiac surgery patients face greater risk of developing postoperative pneumonia. An upcoming clinical trial will test whether targeted antibiotic treatment before surgery can improve outcomes for those patients. Researchers also plan to explore whether breath analysis could enable earlier detection of lung transplant rejection and rapid differentiation between conditions such as pneumonia, emphysema, heart failure and pulmonary embolism in emergency settings.

The endowment will provide annual support for at least one postgraduate student and two undergraduate students to work in the laboratory. Participants in the research program include undergraduate students from UofL's J.B. Speed School of Engineering, School of Medicine trainees, surgery residents and doctoral candidates.

"With demand for research opportunities now exceeding our capacity, this endowment ensures the work, and the students and trainees who depend on it, can continue in perpetuity," said Jeff Bumpous, executive vice president for health affairs and dean of the UofL School of Medicine.

The Gibbs Foundation was established in 2014 by George Gibbs, a Louisville philanthropist who died in 2022. The foundation has made substantial investments in health research at UofL, including support for cancer research programs.