UC Davis Receives $120M Gift for Veterinary Medicine

The University of California, Davis, has received a $120 million gift for its veterinary school from philanthropists Joan and Sanford I. Weill.

The gift is one of the largest in the university’s history, and the largest ever for veterinary medicine worldwide, according to the news release. Two-thirds of the funds will go toward building a new small animal teaching hospital, which will allow the current facility to serve an additional 20,000 animals on top of the 50,000 it already treats each year. The hospital will also integrate artificial intelligence and precision medicine to improve diagnostics and allow for more clinical trials.

The remaining $40 million will bolster UC Davis’s research into health and disease across species, focused on illnesses that affect humans as well as animals, including cancer, neurological disorders and cardiovascular conditions. For example, stem-cell research on bulldog puppies with spina bifida has allowed surgeons to treat the condition in developing human fetuses.

The Weills’ interest in veterinary medicine stems from personal experience; Joan once aspired to become a veterinarian, and the couple’s dog received treatment at UC Davis after being diagnosed with lymphoma in 2018.

“Angel’s care at UC Davis left a lasting impression on our family,” Joan Weill said in a statement.

In honor of the gift, the school has been renamed the UC Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine.

“UC Davis is home to one of the world’s most outstanding veterinary schools and many of the brightest minds in animal and human medicine,” said Sandy Weill, a long-serving member of the UC Davis Chancellor’s Board of Advisors. “We are proud to support an institution where groundbreaking research and compassionate care are prioritized together, and where discovery benefits both animal and human health.”