Announcement of the Sabri Ülker Center’s Inauguration
$24 Million Gift to Harvard School of Public Health to Establish Center for Nutrient, Genetic, and Metabolic Research
Murat Ülker, a leading entrepreneur in İstanbul, Turkey, contributed $24 million on behalf of the Ülker family to Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) to establish the Sabri Ülker Center for Nutrient, Genetic, and Metabolic Research in 2014. The gift will address what many scientists consider to be one of the greatest public health threats of the twenty-first century: chronic and complex diseases of a metabolic nature, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The incidence of these diseases has been increasing at an alarming rate in Turkey and around the globe while solutions have failed to emerge, having a devastating impact on health systems.
The gift was made in honor of the late Sabri Ülker, who started what is now Yıldız Holding, a multinational corporation based in Turkey. The gift will support work being led by Gökhan S. Hotamışlıgil, MD, Ph.D., who is the J.S. Simmons Professor of Genetics and Metabolism and previous Chair of the Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases (now named Molecular Metabolism) at the School of Public Health. The gift will establish the Sabri Ülker Center to integrate advanced molecular and mechanistic research exploring how the body regulates metabolism and processes and uses nutrients. This work is believed to be an important scientific frontier for slowing the worldwide epidemic of metabolic diseases.
Worldwide, obesity has nearly doubled since 1980 and more than 1.4 billion adults aged 20 and older are overweight or obese, leading to an estimated 3.4 million deaths annually. Health consequences of overweight and obesity include heart disease and stroke—the leading causes of death worldwide—diabetes, and several types of cancer. Recent studies have shown the prevalence of obesity in Turkey increasing to nearly 35 percent of the country’s population. Other research demonstrates that 13.7 percent of Turks have been diagnosed with diabetes as of 2010. In the U.S., researchers predict that the number of obese Americans will rise to 164 million by 2030, leading to 7.8 million more cases of diabetes, 6.8 million more cases of coronary heart disease and stroke, and 539,000 more cases of cancer.
“With rates of chronic metabolic disorders skyrocketing across the globe, this transformational gift comes at a time of great need for resources to support our basic research,” says HSPH Dean Julio Frenk. “The knowledge emerging from this line of scientific exploration has tremendous implications for efforts around the globe to prevent and treat problems like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.”
There is an urgent need for new and innovative approaches to manage the overwhelming burden of chronic diseases and offer better ways to prevent these diseases from developing.
“The Sabri Ülker Center will address this unsustainable trend by developing new strategies and approaches to prevent and treat such debilitating disorders,” said Ali Ülker, grandson of Sabri Ülker and Vice Chairman of the Yıldız Holding Board of Directors. “We hope this contribution to science will benefit humanity greatly and we have every confidence in Professor Hotamışlıgil’s research and leadership as a world-renowned, preeminent scientist in the field of metabolic diseases.”
The gift will be used to support faculty and researchers, and to train students and young researchers who are merging contemporary, cutting edge basic mechanistic science to explore nutrients and metabolism for 10 years. A biennial international symposium will also be organized.
“We are honored to receive this visionary gift,” says Professor Hotamışlıgil, a native of Turkey. “The establishment of the Sabri Ülker Center in support of our work has the exciting potential to benefit people in the US, Turkey, and around the world, and we are extremely grateful to Murat Ülker for his extraordinary generosity.”
Sabri Ülker’s Legacy
Sabri Ülker was one of Turkey’s early and iconic entrepreneurs. He launched Ülker company in 1944 and gradually expanded into other businesses, consolidating under the umbrella of Yıldız Holding in 1989 (Yıldız is Turkish for ‘Star’). He was chairman of the Yıldız board until 2000 and the honorary chairman until his death in 2012. Sabri Ülker was one of the first Turkish businessmen to incorporate hygiene practices into the manufacturing process and was quoted as stating: “Our priority has always been the health of our customers.” The Ülker family established the Sabri Ülker Food Research Foundation in 2009 to support scientific contributions in food, nutrition, and health. Topics discussed at Foundation conferences include biological glucose monitoring devices for diabetes, sugar and salt consumption, the impact of micronutrients on early childhood development, clean water, and sustainable agricultural practices as well as educational strategies to disseminate healthy dietary and lifestyle practices.
“The Sabri Ülker Center will address the unsustainable trend of metabolic diseases by developing new strategies and approaches to prevent and treat such debilitating disorders,” said Ali Ülker, grandson of Sabri Ülker and Vice Chairman of the Yıldız Holding Board of Directors. “In making this gift to honor Sabri Ülker, our principle is simple; we go after the great science. We hope this contribution to science will benefit humanity greatly and we have every confidence in Professor Hotamışlıgil’s research and leadership as a world-renowned, preeminent scientist in the field of metabolic diseases.”
Sabri Berksan, the son of a migrant family, while running his tiny bakery shop with extremely limited means in Eminönü, Istanbul in 1944, was reading, and falling in love with, the novel by Safiye Erol, The Ülker Storm. “Causing great surges not only in the rough seas but also in our emotional world, the Ülker Birth Storm starts blowing every year on the 10th day of June, lasts for 3 days, and calms down on the 12th day of June. I believe the passing of Sabri Ülker, on exactly the 12th day of June, is a story of a novel even beyond the vast imagination of Safiye, who left behind spectacular masterpieces of- turn of fate.”
By renowned columnist Yılmaz Özdil