Philanthropists give $400M for genetic research

Philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad announced plans to donate a massive $400 million for genetic research at the Broad Institute. This comes just five years after the couple gave $200 million to establish the institute in the wake of the Human Genome Project. The endowment will fund genetic research through 2014 and allow the Institute to become a permanent, non-profit organization. The Broad Institute, which includes 1,200 researchers, is overseen by Harvard and MIT and is also associated with the Whitehead Institute.

"Of all of our philanthropy, the Broad Institute has been the investment that has yielded the greatest returns," said Eli Broad, founder of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. "Although this is a large gift--the largest that we have ever made--it is only a fraction of what will be needed to unlock the enormous promise of biomedical research at MIT and Harvard." The $600 million commitment is the largest to support biomedical research activity at universities in the world.

- check out the release
- here's the Wall Street Journal article

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