Meet P. Roy Vagelos, MD ’54 and Diana Vagelos

In their remarkable philanthropy and in their lives together, Roy and Diana Vagelos share a commitment to the highest ideals: integrity, leadership, service, and generosity. These values have never wavered—and they continue to lead by example.

The Vageloses met on Columbia’s campus in 1951, when Roy Vagelos was in medical school at Columbia and Diana Touliatou was a student at Barnard College. Both were the children of Greek immigrants and recipients of scholarship awards that made their education possible. Married in 1955, they have been giving back to Columbia and Barnard for more than 50 years.

Roy Vagelos’s accomplishments as a physician, scientist, and executive in the pharmaceutical industry are widely celebrated. After completing his medical degree at Columbia in 1954, Dr. Vagelos worked first at the National Institutes of Health and then at Washington University in St. Louis, where he served as chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. He spent 19 years at Merck & Co., Inc., where, under his leadership as board chair and CEO, the company was recognized by Fortune as the most admired corporation in America for seven years in a row. Dr. Vagelos is chair of the Board of Advisors of the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

An active alumna of Barnard College, Diana currently serves as vice chair of the school’s Board of Trustees. The Diana Center, a hub of student life completed in 2010 and beloved by the Barnard community, is named in her honor. A tireless champion of women’s causes, Diana also serves as co-chair of Columbia’s Women’s Health Care Council Development and Planning Committee.

About Their Philanthropy

The Vageloses’ current philanthropic activities span a variety of priority areas.

Vagelos Institute for Basic Biomedical Science

In 2024, with an extraordinary gift of $400 million, Dr. and Mrs. Vagelos made the single largest gift ever to Columbia’s medical school and became the most generous donors in the history of Columbia University. This gift established the Roy and Diana Vagelos Institute for Basic Biomedical Science to encompass and serve as home to all aspects of the basic sciences for the advancement of medicine at VP&S, including the basic science departments, research, graduate and medical education programs, and physician-scientist career development pathways. Building on a previous institute commitment of $175 million by Dr. and Mrs. Vagelos in 2023, the 2024 gift significantly expanded the Vagelos Institute’s mission beyond its initial focus on graduate programs and physician-scientist career advancement.

The Vagelos Institute for Basic Biomedical Science establishes a new, dynamic organizational model that unites the research occurring in the basic science departments at VP&S with cutting-edge graduate and medical education programs as well as the exemplary research programs in our world-class clinical departments. By assembling this mix of mutually reinforcing activities in a de-siloed institute, VP&S seeks to build the world’s foremost ecosystem for biomedical research and to attract future generations of exceptionally creative and collaborative scientists, in keeping with the goals of the VP&S 2024 strategic plan. With the visionary partnership of Dr. and Mrs. Vagelos, Columbia is creating a new academic model that encourages and accelerates the intellectual risk-taking needed to make historic advances in health science research.

In addition to establishing the Vagelos Institute for Basic Biomedical Science, the Vageloses’ 2024 gift also supported construction of the new biomedical research building, to be known as the Vagelos Innovation Laboratories, on 167^th Street and Audubon Avenue, on the VP&S campus in Washington Heights. This facility, which will provide more than 55,000 square feet of new laboratory space and become an indispensable research hub at Columbia, will be dedicated in part to the exploration of the cell engineering and gene therapies that are defining the next frontier in biomedical science and patient care. Dr. and Mrs. Vagelos also designated a portion of their 2024 gift to advance these specific disciplines.

Historic Scholarship Initiative

In 2017, the Vageloses made a transformative gift of $250 million to the medical college, as part of its 250th anniversary celebration. In tribute, the medical college was named for Roy and Diana.

Through this gift, along with gifts from other alumni, friends, and faculty, Roy and Diana helped fund a transformative scholarship endowment program to provide financial aid to those Columbia medical students with the most financial need. The initiative allowed Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons to replace educational loans with scholarships, helping to directly address the onerous burden of medical school debt on our graduates.

The scholarship endowment program has helped shape the future of medicine, enabling aspiring doctors to choose medical specialties based on their passions rather than on income potential to pay back loans. The brightest, most ambitious young doctors can pursue vital fields such as primary care and research, though they may be less lucrative. Through this revolutionary program, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons sparked a debt-relief movement in medical education.

Philanthropic Investment in Precision Medicine

The Vageloses’ 2017 gift also included $100 million for efforts in basic science and precision medicine at VP&S. Columbia continues to pioneer new discoveries across the fields shaping the future of personalized patient care, including genetics and development, biochemistry and molecular biophysics, systems biology, data science, artificial intelligence, and more.

Vagelos Education Center

In 2010, Dr. and Mrs. Vagelos made a $53 million gift and led the capital campaign for the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center. With state-of-the-art learning and social spaces including innovative simulation facilities, the building supports VP&S medical and graduate students in their training to become future leaders of medicine and science. The building with its singular design has become an acclaimed part of the upper Manhattan skyline, and it has been recognized with LEED Gold certification, aligning with Columbia’s commitment to sustainability.