Rockefeller University

Rockefeller University is an American private graduate university in New York City. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. Rockefeller is the oldest biomedical research institute in the United States of America, and has dominated its medical life since 1901.¹⁾

The university's first director of laboratories Simon Flexner was the brother of Abraham Flexner, the author of the Flexner Report to Congress. The report was the decisive part of the Rockefeller family's offensive to take over the American medical system.

The Rockefeller University was founded in June 1901 as The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research by John D. Rockefeller, who had founded the University of Chicago in 1889, upon advice by his advisor Frederick T. Gates and action taken in March 1901 by his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr.^{2) 3)}

Greatly elevating the prestige of American science and medicine, it was America's first biomedical institute, like France's Pasteur Institute and Germany's Robert Koch Institute. The Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded in 1913, is a separate entity, but has close connections mediated by prominent figures holding dual positions.⁴⁾

The first director of laboratories was Simon Flexner, who supervised the development of research capacity at the Institute, and whose staff made major discoveries in basic research and medicine. While a student at Johns Hopkins University, Flexner had studied under the Institute's first scientific director, William H. Welch, first dean of Hopkins' medical school and known as “the dean of American medicine.” Flexner retired in 1935 and was succeeded by Herbert Gasser.⁵⁾ He was succeeded in 1953 by Detlev Bronk, who broadened The Rockefeller Institute into a university that began awarding the PhD degree in 1954. In 1965, The Rockefeller Institute's name was changed to The Rockefeller University.

It was the site of the 2009 Good Club meeting, a secret get-together of some of the world's most powerful billionaires including Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, George Soros, Warren Buffett, and Ted Turner, discussing the problem of how to solve overpopulation.⁶⁾

In January 2011, Rockefeller University joined Pfizer's Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI) program.⁷⁾

For its first six decades, the Institute focused on research to develop basic science, applied research as biomedical engineering, and clinical science. The Rockefeller Hospital's first director Rufus Cole retired in 1937 and was succeeded by Thomas Milton Rivers.⁸⁾ As director of The Rockefeller Institute's virology laboratory, he established virology as an independent field apart from bacteriology.

While working at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, French surgeon and biologist Alexis Carrel suggested the use of gas to euthanize lawbreakers, and in a later edition endorsed the German “suppression” of “the defective.”⁹⁾

The school has received 25 grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2006-2021.¹⁰⁾ Funded activities include research into tuberculosis, monoclonal antibodies, diagnostic testing and “novel” vaccines for HIV, ZMapp manufacturing for Ebola prevention, vaccine adjuvants, the microbiome, mother-child transfer of IgG antibodies, gene editing, artificial olfactory receptors, COVID-19 testing assays, evaluating cellular and molecular events post-mRNA vaccine, and monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

David Rockefeller joined the board of trustees in 1940, was its chairman from 1950 to 1975, chaired the board's executive committee from 1975 to 1995, became honorary chairman and life trustee, and remained active until his death in 2017.¹¹⁾

Early in her career, Margaret Hamburg conducted neuroscience research at Rockefeller University.¹²⁾ In addition to becoming a member of the board of trustees for the university,¹³⁾ she would also go on to hold prominent positions with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, United States Department of Health and Human Services, Rockefeller Foundation, Harvard University, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, the University of Washington, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, among others.

In her various positions, Hamburg has participated in several pandemic war games including Operation Dark Winter, Clade X, and the 2021 Monkeypox Tabletop Exercise.

• https://web.archive.org/web/20201011005232/https://seek.rockefeller.edu/charles-m-rice-2/