Northwestern University is on a fundraising roll.
A month after announcing its largest gift ever, the university has secured another significant donation: nearly $100 million for its medical school.
Northwestern alum Louis Simpson and his wife, Kimberly Querrey, have given $92 million to support biomedical research programs, in particular regenerative medicine. The university’s new biomedical research center, which will be part of the academic medical campus in Chicago, will be named for them.
“They are really excited about breaking ground in a couple of months and want to make sure it happens as soon as it can,” Northwestern President Morton Schapiro told the Tribune on Thursday morning. “The products that we have been developing, all kinds of drugs and clinical trials. … At the end of the day, this is what it is about. It is about contributing to the welfare of the nation and the world.”
The research center, to be built on the site of the former Prentice Women’s Hospital, will provide space for scientists working in cancer, heart disease, neurodegenerative disorders and genetics, and will provide research opportunities for medical students, residents and fellows.
Combined with a prior gift, Simpson and Querrey have donated $117.8 million to Northwestern’s ongoing fundraising campaign, the largest amount from a single donor. To date the university has raised $2.2 billion, about $1 billion of which is for the medical school and medical center. The goal is to raise $3.75 billion.
Simpson and Querrey previously donated $25 million to endow the university’s Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine, where some of the world’s leading research is being done on applying nanotechnology to regenerative medicine. The Institute’s scientists are working on finding ways to repair, replace or regenerate the body’s tissues and organs that are lost to trauma, disease and genetic factors.
Construction is expected to begin later this year on the 12-story biomedical research center, which will be connected to the Lurie Medical Research Center. The $400 million project will have nine laboratory floors and could eventually accommodate 15 additional floors. The building, at 333 E. Superior St., is expected to be completed in 2018.
In addition to providing space for those working on regenerative medicine, the new center will house researchers associated with the children’s hospital, engineering school, department of physical medicine and rehabilitation institute.
“Kimberly and I are proud to support the leading-edge science that is occurring at Northwestern,” Simpson said in a statement. “The research that is being done now will have a real impact on people’s lives and give new hope to those who have been affected by injuries and disease.”
Simpson, a 1958 alum, is chairman of the Florida-based investment advisory firm SQ Advisors and is the former president and CEO of capital operations at Geico. Querrey is president of SQ Advisors. They live in Naples, Fla.
In January, Northwestern announced a more than $100 million donation to boost the field of global studies and fund scholarships for international students. The gift came from alum Roberta “Bertie” Buffett Elliott, sister of business magnate and billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett.
While that gift was for the social sciences and humanities, the donation announced Thursday will be for the medical and engineering side of the campus. The university’s goal is to raise $3.75 billion by 2018.
“We are really excited about it,” Schapiro said. “I am happy, but I am not ready to go on vacation.”
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