Purdue Receives Largest Endowment in School's History

The Mann Foundation for Biomedical Engineering is giving a $100-million endowment to Purdue University to establish the Alfred Mann Institute at the school.

According to the university, the institute will enable the commercialization of innovative biomedical technologies that improve health.

The endowment is the largest single gift in the university's history.

"Through Purdue's Alfred Mann Institute for Biomedical Development, we are participating in a new model of university technology transfer for a new century," said Purdue President Martin Jischke in a statement. "Through the Purdue Research Park, we already have an effective strategy for technology transfer. But we now can enhance our capabilities to meet the growing need to translate our faculty members' discoveries into useful products."

Indiana companies will receive preferential treatment when it comes to licensing the university technologies that are developed by the institute. It will be housed in a 30,000-square-foot space at the research park.

The institute will help identify about two new biomedical projects per year out of the hundreds at Purdue with commercialization potential, growing to as many as six ongoing projects when if full operation.

It is the third institute created by the foundation, which plans to open a total of 12 institutes at various research universities by 2012. The first institute opened in 2001 at the University of Southern California, and a second was established in October at the Technion University in Haifa, Israel.