P A R T
BRAIN STORM 6
STORM FAL L 2 0 1 9 | 15
LILLIAN S. WELLS
FOUNDATION
For more than three decades,
the Lillian S. Wells Foundation has
been integral to the growth of and
advancements made by UF’s department
of neurosurgery, which in 2016 was
renamed the Lillian S. Wells Department
of Neurosurgery, to date the only named
department in the College of Medicine’s
63-year history. With a total of more
than $25 million in gifts beginning in
1983, the Wells Foundation has funded
two professorships, provided the first
stereotactic radiosurgery system in Florida
and established and continues to support
UF’s Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain
Tumor Therapy, where multidisciplinary
teams of experts provide individualized
treatment plans and conduct leadingedge
research. Among the foundation’s
gifts, a $10 million contribution in 2011
to recruit a preeminent brain tumor
science team to UF was matched by the
university and used to recruit renowned
immunotherapy expert Duane Mitchell,
MD, PhD, and his team of investigators.
Neurologist B.J. Wilder, MD, is a giant in
his field known for improving the practice
of treating epilepsy by developing
standard drug levels for antiepileptic
medications. The Gainesville native, a
professor emeritus of neurology and
neuroscience in UF’s College of Medicine,
retired in 1994, but with his late wife, Eve,
has passionately supported UF’s research
into neurological diseases since the 1970s.
With donations to UF totaling more
than $5.7 million from the B.J. and Eve
Wilder Family Foundation, the couple
established three faculty endowments:
two professorships in epilepsy,
currently held by Jean Cibula, MD, and
Giridhar Kalamangalam, MD, and one
in Alzheimer’s disease, currently held
by Demetrius M. Maraganore, MD. In
addition, the Wilders established the B.J.
and Eve Wilder Center for Excellence in
Epilepsy Research at UF’s McKnight Brain
Institute, and they have made significant
gifts to the UF Brain Bank and to support
research fellowships in dementia.
And this year, the family tradition
continues, with daughter Karen Wilder
Scott joining the leadership council of the
newly established Norman Fixel Institute
for Neurological Diseases at UF Health.
At the start of the new millennium, a
$15 million gift from the McKnight Brain
Research Foundation put UF on the map
as a national leader in brain research.
The gift was matched by the state, and
the then-new UF Brain Institute became
the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight
Brain Institute of the University of Florida.
The late McKnights of Miami Beach —
Evelyn, a nurse, and William, longtime
chairman of the board of the 3M Co. —
were passionate about furthering the
understanding of age-related memory
loss, or normal changes to the brain in
advanced age. The McKnights’ hope was
to drive research that could produce
recommendations and treatments for
preventing age-related cognitive decline
and memory loss in the vast majority:
people who experience normal cognitive
aging but are unaffected by pathological
memory loss such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Today, the McKnight Brain Research
Foundation continues to support
investigators in UF’s Center for Cognitive
Aging and Memory Clinical Translational
Research and UF’s Age-Related Memory
Loss programs.
B.J. AND EVE WILDER
FAMILY FOUNDATION
MCKNIGHT BRAIN
RESEARCH FOUNDATION