Ó³»­´«Ã½

Eli and Edythe L. Ó³»­´«Ã½

Only eighteen months after the launch of the Ó³»­´«Ã½ of MIT and Harvard, Los Angeles-based philanthropists Eli and Edythe Ó³»­´«Ã½ announced today that they are doubling their founding gift to the Institute from $100 million to $200 million. The Ó³»­´«Ã½s' gift is the largest ever given to support a joint endeavor combining the strengths of two great universities — Harvard and MIT. With the Ó³»­´«Ã½s' first $100 million gift having been made to MIT, the second $100 million gift will now be made through Harvard. The combined gift will be given as $20 million per year over ten years.

"Edye and I have been impressed by the tremendous progress already made by the scientists at the Ó³»­´«Ã½ and by the success of this new model for collaborative science involving Harvard and MIT." said Eli Ó³»­´«Ã½, founder and chairman of the Ó³»­´«Ã½ Foundations. "We are making this gift because we believe that the next generation of young scientists has the vision and ability to transform medicine."

"Our gift will allow the Ó³»­´«Ã½ to create new capabilities that will allow it to take on important new challenges," added Mr. Ó³»­´«Ã½. "We hope others will join us in supporting this unique and powerful venture."

The Ó³»­´«Ã½'s mission is to fulfill the promise of genomics for medicine. It aims to empower creative scientists to construct new powerful tools for genomic medicine, to make them accessible to the global scientific community, and to apply them to the understanding and treatment of disease. The Ó³»­´«Ã½ is a new type of biomedical research institute announced in 2003 and launched in 2004 by an unprecedented collaboration of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Harvard affiliated hospitals, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

"Eli and Edythe Ó³»­´«Ã½'s vote of confidence, expressed through this generous gift, is a tribute to the work of hundreds of young scientists who have come together under this unique collaboration," said Dr. Eric Lander, founding director of the Ó³»­´«Ã½. "The Ó³»­´«Ã½'s scientists have already made major advances in cancer, medical genetics, chemical biology, infectious disease and other fields. The Ó³»­´«Ã½s' unrestricted support helps a remarkable generation seize the opportunities ahead." The Ó³»­´«Ã½'s annual budget of $100 million is derived largely from traditional peer-reviewed scientific grants, but the Ó³»­´«Ã½s' gift will allow the Institute to pursue new directions and initiatives.

"The promise of genomic medicine to diagnose, treat, and potentially cure diseases that affect millions can be more rapidly achieved through collaboration and partnership," said Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers. "The Ó³»­´«Ã½, thanks to Eli and Edye Ó³»­´«Ã½'s continuing generous support, has become a model for the way we think about, organize and conduct research. By bringing together different scientific disciplines, the Institute will allow us to increase our understanding of the human genome and turn this knowledge into treatments and cures for diseases more rapidly."

"The mission of the Ó³»­´«Ã½ draws on the extraordinary strengths in the Boston/Cambridge area, with its world-leading institutions and scientific minds and resources. The vision of the Ó³»­´«Ã½ reaches across the frontiers of scientific, technological and medical research and sets out new structures for collaborative work," said Susan Hockfield, president of MIT. "We continue to be profoundly grateful to Eli and Edye Ó³»­´«Ã½ for their visionary commitment to this important work and for their extraordinary leadership as philanthropists."

"My hat's off to Eli and Edythe Ó³»­´«Ã½. Their extraordinary generosity will accelerate discovery and thereby lay the foundations for genome-powered medicine," said David C. Page, Director of the Whitehead Institute. "The Ó³»­´«Ã½'s gift led to the forging of a groundbreaking partnership among Harvard, MIT, the Harvard hospitals, and Whitehead, and a glorious new institute is the result. We at Whitehead look forward to continuing and expanding collaborations with Ó³»­´«Ã½ scientists."

The Ó³»­´«Ã½ involves a world-class faculty including a total of 60 core and associate members, with appointments at one of the Harvard or MIT based institutions. They collaborate through scientific programs based at the Ó³»­´«Ã½ to identify and tackle important projects. The activities range across biomedical science including:

• chemical biology (using chemistry to probe biological systems and to identify potential therapeutics),

• genome analysis studies (including sequencing and analysis of mammals and microbes to identify the functions encoded in human DNA),

• medical and population genetics (including defining the genetic variation in the human population and using it to find the basis of diseases such as diabetes or psychiatric disorders),

• cancer (ranging from mapping the molecular pathways of different cancer types to identifying novel compounds to alter tumor development and growth), and

• infectious disease (ranging from understanding the genetic variability of infectious agents to identifying new therapeutics).

Ó³»­´«Ã½ scientists have helped enable these studies by playing a leading role in creating genomic tools that can be used by the entire biomedical community. Ó³»­´«Ã½ scientists led the recently completed international effort to create a catalog of human genetic variation called the Haplotype Map ("HapMap"). They are also leading an international collaboration to make a complete library of RNA interference (RNAi) against every human and mouse gene. (For further examples of current initiatives and programs, go to www.broadinstitute.org).

"The intellectual community of the Ó³»­´«Ã½ has made possible our work in understanding the basic workings of malaria," said Dr. Dyann Wirth, professor of infectious diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health and associate member of the Ó³»­´«Ã½. "We could never have done this alone."

"Work in my laboratory on the Achilles' heels of cancer has flowed directly from collaborations at the Ó³»­´«Ã½," said Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Dr. William Hahn, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate member of the Ó³»­´«Ã½. Hahn has been a leader of the Ó³»­´«Ã½-based RNAi Consortium. "The unique energy and organization of the Ó³»­´«Ã½ community is accelerating progress in many labs."

A new Ó³»­´«Ã½ building, located at 7 Cambridge Center in Kendall Square in Cambridge, is scheduled for completion in the early spring of 2006. The expansion from the Institute's current nearby location at 320 Charles Street along with the new gift from the Ó³»­´«Ã½s will allow Ó³»­´«Ã½ scientists to undertake additional exciting and critical scientific studies they have identified as priorities for furthering the understanding of human biology and disease.

The new gift will be provided through The Ó³»­´«Ã½ Foundations, a Los Angeles-based venture philanthropic organization established by Eli and Edythe Ó³»­´«Ã½. ().

The announcement will be made at 2:00pm EST, Wed., November 30, 2005, at the Ó³»­´«Ã½ of MIT and Harvard, 320 Charles St. (Corner of Charles and Sixth Streets), Cambridge, MA 02141.

To participate in the announcement and press conference by phone:

Dial-In Number(s):
US/Canada Dial-in #: (800) 644-8634
Int'l/Local Dial-In #: (706) 634-0882

* Conference ID number: 3003434
* Expected Duration: 60 minutes

To attend the announcement and press conference in person:MBTA red line, Kendall Square/MIT stop. For directions go to http://www.broadinstitute.org/contact

For more information on the press conference, contact: Fintan Steele, Ó³»­´«Ã½, at 617-324-1698 or fsteele@broadinstitute.org