Rice University rises with massive $100M gift for innovative new student center

student centered

The $100-million donation will fund the planned Moody Center for Student Life and Opportunity. Rendering courtesy of Rice University

Rice University's Owls are soaring of late, with the school just being named the top in Texas and No. 7 in the U.S. Now, the institution known as the "Ivy League of the South" is the recipient of a mammoth gift aimed at a game-changing student center.

The Moody Foundation has granted Rice University a massive $100 million for its planned Moody Center for Student Life and Opportunity, which will replace Rice's current Memorial Center (RMC), and will become a new focal point for the university's 300-acre wooded campus, the school announced.

Notably, this new student center is designed by Sir David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates; the acclaimed architect's other works include the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Scheduled to break ground in early 2022 and construction completed in 2023, the brand-new Moody Center for Student Life and Opportunity will maintain some elements of the old RMC, namely the chapel and cloisters. Students and staff can expect demolition of the rest of the existing RMC, per a press release.

Moody's $100 million grant matches the record for the largest gift in the university's history. (Last year, the Robert A. Welch Foundation donated $100 million to the school to establish the innovation-driven Welch Institute.) The Moody Foundation has contributed over $125 million to Rice since 1964, a press release notes.

As part of the Moody $100 million gift, a new Moody Fund for Student Opportunity will support an endowment dedicated to student programs "physically anchored in the new student center and elsewhere in the university," according to the school.

All this supports Rice's recently announced plans for a 20-percent expansion of the undergraduate student body by fall 2025, as CultureMap previously reported.

"We are extremely grateful for this extraordinary philanthropy in support of Rice students," said Rice president David Leebron in a statement. "This gift will enable our students to broaden their engagements and experiences while at Rice in ways that will empower their success throughout their lives. It will also enable us to both connect more deeply with Houston and with the world. This will be the epitome of what an inclusive and outward-looking student center should be."

Elle Moody, a trustee of both the Moody Foundation and Rice, added: "As a Rice University alumna, I know this gift will have a profound and lasting effect on the campus and its students. This investment is supporting much more than just a building. We're investing in every student, so they have access to pursue any endeavor whether it's leadership, artistic, athletic, global or more."

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Kids in need will receive 2,000 new computers. Photo courtesy of Pixlr

Houston kids connect to $1 million in new computers thanks to local nonprofit

helping hand

As the global pandemic and hurricanes and tropical storms pester the Greater Houston area, a greater emphasis is being placed on online learning for local students. Now, to ensure there is less of a limited digital divide, a local nonprofit has made a significant gift to the Houston Independent School District.

The Moody Foundation announced a grant of $1 million to HISD for the purchase of more than 2,000 computer devices. The grant will cover devices for pre-K through fifth-grade students in the district's Achieve 180 schools, which have been designated as underserved and underperforming HISD feeder pattern communities, according to a press release.

Such a grant is pivotal in a time when data shows Texas leading the country with the widest digital divide among students and teachers. According to research from the distinct, some 35 percent of HISD 209,000 students lacked internet at home, while another 40 to 45 percent lacked a computer device. Meanwhile, per the distinct, thousands of impoverished students still require devices.

The Achieve 180 students scored lower than non-Achieve 180 students at the Approaches Grade Level on STAAR, per HISD. Reports show that these students were also less engaged during remote learning.

"The pandemic has only further magnified the digital divide," said Ross Moody, trustee of the Moody Foundation. "The Moody Foundation has a long history of supporting early childhood education to build opportunities for student success. Everyone deserves and should have the same level of access to education."

Since the onset of COVID-19 in March, the foundation has granted over $10 million in COVID-19 funds to more 100 nonprofits and schools in Houston, Galveston, and Austin.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Houston digital health platform Koda lands strategic investment

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Houston-based advance care planning platform Koda Health has added another investor to the lineup.

The company secured a strategic investment for an undisclosed amount from UPMC Enterprises, the commercialization arm of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The funding is part of Koda's oversubscribed series A funding round that closed in October, according to a release.

"UPMC Enterprises’ investment is a meaningful signal, not just to Koda, but to the broader market," Dr. Desh Mohan, chief medical officer and co-founder of Koda Health, said in the news release. "It validates that health systems are ready to invest in infrastructure that makes advance care planning work the way it should: proactively, at scale, and with the human support that these conversations require. Having UPMC Enterprises as a strategic investor puts us in a unique position to prove what's possible."

Koda has raised $14 million to date, according to a representative from the company. Its series A round was led by Evidenced, with participation from Mudita Venture Partners, Techstars and the Texas Medical Center last year. At the time, the company said the funding would allow it to scale operations and expand engineering, clinical strategy and customer success. The company described the round as a "pivotal moment," as it had secured investments from influential leaders in the healthcare and venture capital space.

Koda Health, which was born out of the TMC's Biodesign Fellowship in 2020, saw major growth last year, as well, and now supports more than 1 million patients nationwide through partnerships with Cigna Healthcare, Privia Health, Guidehealth, Sentara, UPMC and Memorial Hermann Health System.

The company integrated its end-of-life care planning platform with Dallas-based Guidehealth in April 2025 and with Epic Systems in July 2025. It also won the 2025 Houston Innovation Award in the Health Tech Business category. Read more here.

UH med school gets $2M gift and more top Houston innovation news

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Editor's note: The top Houston innovation news of the month is full of fresh funding, with two Texas medical schools receiving major gifts — one of historic proportions. Below are the five most-read InnovationMap headlines from April 16-30, 2026.

UH med school granted $2M gift to offer student scholarships

A new scholarship endowment aims to support students in the University of Houston’s recently established medical school. The University of Houston’s Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine received a planned estate gift commitment estimated at $2.1 million to establish the Bob Diehl and Teresa Evans Diehl Scholarship Endowment. The scholarship will assist full-time medical students who demonstrate financial need and meet academic standards. Continue reading.

How Houston innovators played a role in the historic Artemis II splashdown

Research from Rice University played a critical role in the safe return of U.S. astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission this month. Rice mechanical engineer Tayfun E. Tezduyar and longtime collaborator Kenji Takizawa developed a key computational parachute fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis system that proved vital in NASA’s Orion capsule’s descent into the Pacific Ocean. The FSI system, originally developed in 2013 alongside NASA Johnson Space Center, was critical in Orion’s three-parachute design, which slowed the capsule as it returned to Earth, according to Rice. Continue reading.

Baylor scientist lands $2M grant to explore links between viruses and Alzheimer’s

A Baylor College of Medicine scientist will begin exploring the possible link between Alzheimer’s disease and viral infections thanks to a $2 million grant awarded in March. Dr. Ryan S. Dhindsa hypothesizes that Alzheimer’s may have some link to previous viral infections contracted by the patient. To study this intriguing possibility, the American Brain Foundation has gifted him the Cure One, Cure Many award in neuroinflammation. Continue reading.

New UT Austin med center, anchored by MD Anderson, gets historic gift

A donation announced April 21 breaks a major record at the University of Texas at Austin. Michael and Susan Dell are now UT Austin's first supporters to give $1 billion. In response, the university will create the UT Dell Campus for Advanced Research and the UT Dell Medical Center to "advance human health," per a press release. Continue reading.

Houston VC funding surged nearly 50% in Q1 2026, report says

Houston saw a jump in VC funding in Q1 2026, fueled by several major investments in clean energy startups. Image via Getty Images

First-quarter venture capital funding for Houston-area startups climbed nearly 50 percent compared to the same time last year, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. In Q1 2026, Houston-area startups raised $532.3 million, a 49 percent jump from $320.2 million in Q1 2025, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. However, the Q1 total fell 23 percent from the $671.05 million raised in Q4 2025. Continue reading.

New 'living pharmacy' biotech company launches out of Rice venture studio

fighting cancer

Rice University’s biotech venture studio RBL LLC has launched a new “living pharmacy” company, Duracyte, designed to make cancer treatment easier on patients.

Backed by an up to $45 million Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) award, Duracyte aims to commercialize implantable biohybrid pharmacy devices that are designed to produce therapeutic proteins inside the human body around the clock, replacing the need for regular injections and infusions for some cancer patients.

The company’s main platform is its Hybrid Advanced Molecular Manufacturing Regulator (HAMMR), a rechargeable, implantable device that can sense biological signals, monitor tumor environments and adjust therapeutic output in real time. HAMMR has wireless communication capabilities, which allow patients and clinicians to remotely monitor results through an app every five minutes and make changes to treatment plans without a hosptial visit. Additionally, the device can generate its own oxygen supply, which is key for the therapeutic cells’ survival.

“Biologic medicines such as monoclonal antibodies, cytokines and metabolic regulators already account for a significant share of modern therapeutics, but the way we deliver them today often requires frequent injections or infusions that can be demanding for patients and lead to inconsistent drug levels,” Daniel Anderson, MIT professor and co-founder of Duracyte, said in a news release. “Our vision is to enable a continuous, stable therapy by producing these medicines directly inside the body, which could improve treatment consistency, reduce side effects and ultimately transform how biologic therapies are delivered across many diseases.”

Duracyte’s first clinical trial is slated to begin by the end of 2026 and will focus on recurrent ovarian cancer. The Phase I study will build upon existing work on encapsulated cytokine pharmacy technology, and the company hopes that within a few years this treatment can reach clinical application.

The development of Duracyte is supported by ARPA-H's Targeted Hybrid Oncotherapeutic Regulation (THOR) project, which supports a multidisciplinary research consortium co-led by Omid Veiseh, a professor of bioengineering at Rice. The consortium also includes others at Rice, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University and the University of Houston, plus industry collaborators like Chicago-based CellTrans.

“What we are building is the culmination of years of progress in cell engineering, biomaterials and implantable device technology,” Veiseh added in the release. “By combining these advances with real-time sensing and adaptive drug delivery, we are working with the support of RBL to create a true ‘living pharmacy’ that can deliver continuous, precisely controlled biologic therapies and fundamentally change how these treatments reach patients.”

RBL launched in 2024 and is based out of Houston’s Texas Medical Center Helix Park. Duracyte is the third company launched by RBL, including Sentinel BioTherapeutics, a clinical-stage immunotherapy company developing localized cytokine therapies for solid tumors, and SteerBio, a regenerative medicine company targeting lymphedema.

“Duracyte exemplifies the kind of breakthrough that Houston’s ecosystem is built to produce,” Paul Wotton, managing partner of RBL LLC and co-founder of Duracyte, added in the release. “With world-class clinical infrastructure, exceptional engineering talent and initiatives like the Texas Biotech Task Force driving alignment across industry, investment and talent, this region is uniquely positioned to move the most ambitious ideas in medicine from concept to patient, faster than anywhere else.”

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