Sean Parker Fetes Cancer Institute with Star-Studded Gala

Photo Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Parker Media

The biggest stars on the planet came out on Wednesday night to join Sean Parker in celebrating the launch of the Sean Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

Napster founder and Facebook’s first president Parker made the single largest contribution ever in the field of immunotherapy to create the institute, an unprecedented and centrally managed collaboration between the country’s leading immunologists and cancer centers.

The gala celebrated this philanthropic venture in the best way possible: with gorgeous décor, a sit-down dinner personally prepared by world renowned chef Wolfgang Puck and special performances by Lady Gaga, John Legend, and surprise guests The Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Holmby Hills home of Sean and Alexandra Parker. 

Photo Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Parker Media

Joining Sean and Alexandra as cohosts were Marc Benioff, Nicolas Berggruen, Orlando Bloom, Governor Jerry Brown and Anne Gust, Ray Chambers, Katie Couric, Ron Conway, John Doerr, Jack Dorsey, Ari Emanuel, Lucian Grainge CBE and Caroline Grainge, Ron Howard, Arianna Huffington, Jimmy Iovine, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Milken, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Katy Perry, Sean Penn, Laurene Powell Jobs, Mark Ronson and Anne Wojcicki.

Other celebrity attendees include Tom Hanks (emcee), Bradley Cooper (presenter), Sean Penn (presenter), Connie Britton, Princess Beatrice of York, Emilia Clarke, James Corden, Goldie Hawn, David Guetta, Minka Kelly, Jaime King, Lykke Li, Michelle Monaghan, Aaron & Lauren Paul, Hooper Penn, Dylan Penn, Ryan Seacrest, Allison Williams, Rita Wilson, David Blaine, Samanta Ronson, and more.

The Parker Institute includes over 40 laboratories and more than 300 researchers from the country’s leading cancer centers: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford Medicine, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, San Francisco, the University of Pennsylvania and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Each Parker Institute research center receives comprehensive funding, access to dedicated research, clinical resources and the key technologies needed to accelerate research discoveries in cancer immunotherapy. In a unique agreement between the centers, the administration of intellectual property will be shared, enabling all researchers to have immediate access to a broad swath of core discoveries. Renowned UC San Francisco immunologist Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD, has been named president and CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

Photo Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Parker Media