Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates has donated a whopping $12m to the University of Washington’s medical school: the gift, the largest single donation in the history of the university, will be used to create a department of molecular biotechnology at the medical school and to hire noted immunologist Leroy Hood as the department’s first chairman; Hood is currently employed by the California Institute of Technology and his department is effectively transferring up the coast to Seattle; the balance of the donation will be used to set up an intellectual venture capital fund to provide seed money for university scientists in molecular biotechnology research, the study of DNA and other major building blocks of life.
