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 The donation is unrestricted, and will support efforts including
increased financial aid for students, loan forgiveness for graduates
who work in underserved areas, new classrooms and seed money for
pathbreaking research too novel to win support from other funders.
In particular, said the school's dean, Julio Frenk, the Morningside
gift will support research and training in four areas: pandemics
ranging from malaria and Ebola to obesity and cancer; environmental
health risks, including pollution, guns, and tobacco; poverty and
humanitarian crises, including war and natural disasters; and
failing health systems.
The Morningside Foundation was established in 1996 by Drs. Ronnie
and Gerald Chan to support higher education in North America and
Asia. Their father, T.H. Chan, founded the Hang Lung Group Ltd, one
of Hong Kong's largest real estate companies.
After Chan's death in 1986, his sons started the Morningside Group,
which makes private equity and venture capital investments in
biotech and other science- and technology-based companies,
especially in China and the United States. The brothers rank 17th on
Forbes' 2014 list of Hong Kong's richest people with a combined net
worth of $2.95 billion.
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The previous record gift to Harvard, announced earlier this year,
was $150 million from hedge fund manager and alumnus Kenneth
Griffin, most of it for financial aid. The largest cumulative
donation to any U.S. university, unadjusted for inflation, is $1.1
billion over many years from former New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP, to his alma mater Johns Hopkins
University, including its now-eponymous School of Public Health.
In an interview, Gerald Chan called his days as a student at the
Harvard School of Public Health "transformative," a time when he
learned that "science can be put into action for the improvement of
human health."
Research at the school has led to the Designated Driver Campaign to
prevent drunk driving; stricter Clean Air Act regulations; and bans
on trans fats after studies showed they increase the risk of heart
disease.
The 101-year-old school, with just over 400 faculty and 1,000
full-time students, will be renamed the Harvard T.H. Chan School of
Public Health. His father, Chan said, "wanted to support scientific
research to alleviate human suffering."
(Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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