Jan T Vilcek

Dr. Vilcek is a professor of microbiology at New York University School of Medicine and co-developed Remicade, an anti-inflammatory drug. Ms. Vilcek is a former associate curator and head of the accessions and catalog department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York. Dr. Vilcek, 77, and his wife, Marica, 74, pledged $21-million to New York University Langone Medical Center. Of the total, $10-million will go toward a new residence hall for students, $10-million will endow full-tuition scholarships, and $1-million will be added to the Jan T. Vilcek Endowed Fellowship Fund, which the couple established five years ago. They came to the United States 46 years ago as refugees from what was then communist Czechoslovakia with no money and few contacts. Dr. and Ms. Vilcek last year gave $1-million to their Vilcek Foundation, in New York, which they established in 2000. The foundation awards grants and prizes with a focus on calling attention to the contributions of immigrants to science and the arts in the United States. The couple also gave $700,000 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a total of more than $390,000 to other nonprofits, including the Bellevue Literary Press, in New York, several scientific research funds at New York University, and other organizations. Dr. Jan T. Vilcek, professor of microbiology at New York University School of Medicine, was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), where he also received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. In 1964 he and his wife, Marica Vilcek, an art historian, defected from what was then communist Czechoslovakia. Upon immigrating to the United States in 1965, Dr. Vilcek joined the faculty of NYU School of Medicine. In 2000 Dr. Vilcek and his wife established the Vilcek Foundation, an organization whose primary mission is to recognize, honor, and publicize outstanding contributions of immigrants to the sciences, arts, and humanities in the United States.