NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) — The Massachusetts Institute of Technology today said that an alumnus has awarded it a $100 million gift to create a new research center that will pool the school’s molecular genetics, cell biology, and engineering disciplines to study cancer.
The gift from Koch Industries executive David Koch will help build the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, which will house genomics, cellular imaging, nanotech, and other technologies and employ around 25 scientists and engineers “to develop new ways to detect, diagnose, treat, and manage” cancer, MIT said today in a statement.
The school said that among the center’s five target areas will be using genomics research along with imaging and micro-scale monitoring technologies to push cancer diagnosis and prevention to “earlier and earlier” stages of the disease.
It also said it will attempt to discover “specific vulnerabilities” of cancer cells through diagramming “key pathways,” engineering new nanotechnology, studying how tumors evade recognition by the immune system, and studying the “molecular and cellular basis for metastasis.”
MIT said the center is scheduled to open in 2010. Tyler Jacks, the David H. Koch Professor of Biology at MIT, will serve as the Director of the Koch Institute.