Scripps Research establishes endowed fund honoring institute president and CEO Pete Schultz

LA JOLLA, CA—Scripps Research has established the Pete Schultz Fund for Innovative Research in recognition of the trailblazing scientific career of its president and CEO. Schultz, holder of the L.S. “Sam” Skaggs Presidential Chair, is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost chemists and a highly successful biotech entrepreneur. He has led the institute for a decade.

At the institute, the Pete Schultz Fund for Innovative Research will provide flexible support for visionary research—a principle that has guided Schultz’s accomplished career—by faculty whose work shows exceptional promise. Rather than being tied to a specific field or project, the fund will provide support to faculty whose bold ideas have the potential to deliver new approaches to biology, chemistry and human health. The inaugural Schultz Innovative Investigator Award recipient will be selected from nominations, with an announcement of the winner planned for October.

“This endowed fund serves to recognize the immeasurable global impact that Pete has had on chemical and biomedical research,” says John Diekman, founding partner of 5AM Ventures and chair of the institute’s Board of Directors. “Equally important, it pays tribute to his skilled leadership, which has transformed this nonprofit institute into a powerhouse of scientific innovation and drug discovery.”

Upon learning of the honor, Schultz said he was “truly touched.” He went on to say that the financial contributions made by so many “has further reinforced my commitment to science and the scientific enterprise as a path to a better world.”

The first Schultz Innovative Investigator will hold the award for two years with the possibility of a third year based on research progress. This financial support will free them and future awardees to explore ambitious avenues of research, ones for which it would be difficult to procure a traditional government grant.

“At a time when funding from federal agencies is increasingly unpredictable, a monetary award such as the Schultz Innovative Investigator Award enables our scientists to pursue the most ambitious—and potentially most rewarding—research to benefit human health,” adds Diekman.

Scripps Research is consistently recognized for its productivity, innovation and impact. Among nonprofit scientific organizations, the institute is ranked among the best in the nation by Nature Index for its research output. And the Cure Innovation Index places Scripps Research third among all U.S. biomedical institutions for its effectiveness in translating scientific discovery into real-world healthcare solutions and treatments.

Initiated and fulfilled by a group of Schultz’s colleagues, friends and laboratory alumni, the Pete Schultz Fund for Innovative Research will not only honor a highly accomplished leader, it will also ensure that transformative scientific investigations continue to be a hallmark of Scripps Research.

About Pete Schultz

Pete Schultz is the president and CEO of Scripps Research, where he holds the L.S. “Sam” Skaggs Presidential Chair. Widely considered one of the top chemists in the world, he has made many seminal contributions to the field, including the development and application of methods to expand the genetic code of living organisms, the discovery of catalytic antibodies, and the development and application of molecular diversity technologies to address problems in chemistry, biology and medicine.

Schultz earned his doctoral degree in chemistry at CalTech and completed postdoctoral studies at MIT. He then joined the faculty at UC Berkeley as a chemistry professor, a principal investigator at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He joined Scripps Research in 1999 and was appointed CEO in 2015. The following year, he was named president of the institute.

An entrepreneur by nature, Schultz has founded nine biotech companies and two research institutes. He established the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation in 1999, serving as its director for more than 10 years. And in 2012, he founded the nonprofit California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr), designed as a new model for accelerating the discovery and development of new medicines for unmet needs. Calibr completed a merger with Scripps Research in 2018 and is now known as the Calibr-Skaggs Institute for Innovative Medicines.

Schultz has received numerous prestigious awards in recognition of his accomplishments, including the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the Welch Award, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, the Solvay Prize (now the Science for the Future Ernest Solvay Prize), the Arthur C. Cope Award and the Heinrich Wieland Prize. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He and his collaborators have published more than 650 scientific papers and have advanced dozens of medicines into clinical testing or FDA approval. Additionally, Schultz has trained over 300 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, many of whom now lead their own labs, companies and institutes.