Columbia University to Receive $200 Million for Neurosciences Center

Columbia University has announced a $200 million gift from Dawn M. Greene and the Jerome L. Greene Foundation in New York City to establish a new research and teaching facility to house the university's Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative.

The gift — the largest ever received by Columbia — will establish the Jerome L. Greene Science Center. Greene, a Columbia alumnus, was a lawyer, real estate investor, and philanthropist. The new center, to be led by neurobiologist Thomas Jessell and Nobel laureates Richard Axel and Eric Kandel, will include laboratories in which Columbia researchers will probe the root causes of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's as well as motor neuron diseases. That research, in turn, will help scientists decode disorders of mood, motivation, cognition, and behavior such as autism, dementia, and schizophrenia. The center will also establish an educational outreach facility with clinical programs that focus on childhood developmental disorders and diseases of the brain.

Prior to its latest gift, the Jerome L. Greene Foundation had contributed approximately $40 million to Columbia. "I know that Jerry would be as excited as the foundation and I am to be making this gift," said Greene Foundation president and CEO Dawn Greene. "He believed in education, especially a Columbia education, and he believed in New York and its future. The creation of a building for the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative struck me as the perfect coming together of all of his interests."

“Columbia to Launch New Neuroscience Center in New York City With the Largest Gift in University History.” Columbia University Press Release 3/20/06.

Primary Subject: Education
Secondary Subject(s): Medical Research, Health
Location(s): New York, New York City

FC008834