Sitting in their Rancho Palos Verdes home overlooking the harbor, Charlotte Ginsburg and Allen Ginsburg, MD, (RES ’63) take time out every day to reflect on how they arrived at this moment.
In his own estimation, Dr. Ginsburg was “unremarkable” in high school. He remembers playing a little bit of football, “and that’s it.” Back then, he didn’t expect much from himself or his future.
Despite his protests and stubborn belief that he would never attend college, Dr. Ginsburg’s chemistry teacher insisted he take an exam for a chance at a scholarship. According to his wife of 45 years, most students took more than an hour to complete the test. At 16 years old, he finished it in 40 minutes.
Thus began Dr. Ginsburg’s journey into academia — a winding path that would eventually lead to a dual ophthalmology practice in Redondo Beach and Wilmington, California; a prospering real estate empire; and a sweeping philanthropic legacy spanning science and medicine, education, the arts and the environment.
Most recently, the Ginsburgs made a transformative gift to advance biomedical science at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the forthcoming UCLA Research Park. This visionary investment marks the couple’s largest bequest to the university.
“We’re very attached to UCLA,” Mrs. Ginsburg said. “We appreciate the beauty of the university and how much it does to uplift students and the surrounding Los Angeles community. We’re very proud of UCLA.”
Substantial portions of the gift will be allocated to the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Biomedical Frontiers Fund — which the medical school dean will direct toward research park projects led by the brightest minds tackling the most exigent scientific challenges — as well as structural needs and leading-edge lab equipment.
The biggest allocation will go toward the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Fund for Graduate Student Support, established to propel research conducted by post graduate students, doctoral trainees and postdoctoral candidates.
“Why do we support early-career researchers?” Mrs. Ginsburg said. “Because this is a pivotal stage in their professional development. An investment in early-career researchers is an investment in the future of medicine.”
Awardees will be selected by the medical school and honored as Ginsburg Fellows and Scholars. The fund will provide crucial resources for aspiring faculty facing “the most imposing challenges of their young careers,” according to John C. Mazziotta, MD, PhD, (RES ’81, FEL ’83) vice chancellor of UCLA Health Sciences and CEO of UCLA Health.
“Their commitment will help us champion scientific investigators and their work at every turn,” Dr. Mazziotta said. “The Ginsburgs understand this talent bottleneck and confront it directly with comprehensive support.”
After all, there was a time when Dr. Ginsburg and his colleagues were in a similar boat, striving to launch their careers and find their purpose.
Dr. Ginsburg earned his medical degree at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and enrolled in residency at San Diego County General Hospital — only to realize that internal medicine wasn’t his true calling.
Instead, he joined the service and became a flight surgeon, treating United States military aviators while stationed in Europe. That’s when he realized that ophthalmology was “the place to be.” He gave residency another shot and completed it this time — at UCLA in 1963. (Dr. Ginsburg’s son, a general surgeon, followed in his footsteps and earned his medical degree at UCLA in 1991.)
While working as an ophthalmologist, Dr. Ginsburg became familiar with the toll that vision loss can take on a patient’s mental health.
“We’d go all over the world and operate on people. We’d only see them once to do the surgery,” Dr. Ginsburg recalled. “And these people wrote to us: ‘Oh, God. I can see the blossoms. I can see the bees.’”
That kind of life-changing impact, amplified to an exponential degree, is what the Ginsburgs stand to achieve with their contribution to the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and UCLA Research Park. Set to open in Westwood in 2028, the park will unite scientists and industry experts from around the world to solve medical mysteries and push the boundaries of discovery.
The 1.3 million-square-foot property will expand the David Geffen School of Medicine’s scientific footprint and house the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, the UCLA Quantum Innovation Hub, collaborative research laboratories, and state-of-the-art technologies.
The Ginsburgs praised UCLA for recruiting scholars from all backgrounds and giving them the opportunity to innovate and pursue their ideas.
“Many of those beautiful minds don’t get to the peak of what they could provide to humanity without philanthropic support at the university level,” Dr. Ginsburg said.
“We are here because of their beautiful minds,” he added. “And we need to nurture these beautiful minds for the future.”
Much like Dr. Ginsburg’s high school chemistry teacher, the Ginsburgs and UCLA have a talent for spotting potential and believing in people — because you never know what they might go on to accomplish.
“We’re very excited,” Mrs. Ginsburg said. “We love UCLA and being able to invest in the future of scientific discovery and medicine. We are fortunate to be in a position where we can give back. I don’t think it gets any better, really.”
Christi Carras is a senior writer for UCLA Health Sciences Development.
