MIT gets $100m gift to build cancer center

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/blog/2007/10/
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
MIT gets $100m gift to build cancer center

A $100 million gift from an MIT alumnus and prostate cancer survivor will
establish a new center for cancer research, the university announced
today.

The David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research will bring
together scientists and engineers in a new building scheduled to open in
2010. Koch, a billionaire executive at the Wichita energy and
manufacturing company Koch Industries, called bringing together
geneticists, cell biologist and engineers a new approach, according to a
statement from MIT. Koch has given millions to other cancer centers,
including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, M.D. Anderson Cancer
Center and Johns Hopkins Medicine.

"Conquering cancer will require multi-disciplined initiatives and MIT is
positioned to enable that collaboration," he said in the statement
distributed by MIT. "As a cancer survivor, I feel especially fortunate to
be able to help advance this effort."

The MIT center will be led by biologist Tyler Jacks and will house the
laboratories of approximately 25 MIT faculty members, including star
scientists Angelika Amon, Phillip Sharp, Angela Belcher and Robert Langer.

The center's opening date is an accelerated schedule demanded by Koch,
according to a story in today's Wall Street Journal summarized below.

The cancer center is part of a $750 million expansion announced by MIT
last fall that includes an apartment complex for graduate students, more
space for the Media Lab and growth for the Sloan School of Management and
for the School of Architecture and Planning.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007
WSJ: MIT donor ties cancer center gift to timetable

Billionaire David Koch , who is battling prostate cancer, agreed to give
$100 million to Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create a cancer
research center -- but he made the gift with a condition, according to a
story in today's Wall Street Journal.

To get the entire gift, MIT had to agree to build the $280 million center
whether or not it has raised the full 80 percent of funds that it usually
wants in hand before it breaks ground, the Journal story says.

Koch estimates that under the "crash basis" schedule, MIT will shave 18
months to two years off the building process. "They were going to do it
over five years," Koch, an MIT alum and board member since 1988, told the
Journal. "I said that is too long."

MIT President Susan Hockfield said building a new cancer center was
already under discussion.

"I agreed to accelerate because the opportunities [in cancer research] are
enormous right now," she told the Journal.


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