Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Oct. 13-the family foundation of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced a donation of $711 million (about 5.098 billion yuan) to the Seattle-based Fred Hatch Cancer Center (Fred Hutch Cancer Center) on Wednesday. This is the largest donation the center has received and one of the highest donations received by cancer research institutions in recent years.

The Fred Hatch Cancer Center says the donation will fund 36 new research laboratories, the construction of a large research facility, clinical trial infrastructure and immunotherapy research within a decade.

Thomas Lynch, president and director of the centre, said he had contacted Mike Bezos and Jackie Bezos to find out their motivation for donating money. Jackie is Bezos's mother and Mike is his stepfather.

Lynch says the Bezos family attaches great importance to progress in research and treatment. "Don't underestimate the importance of urgency. I think it's something I'm very passionate about, and I know Mike and Jackie are also very interested in bringing a cure to patients quickly," he said. "

The Bezos family has donated nearly $68 million to the agency since 2009, according to the Fred Hatch Cancer Center. In a statement, Mike said: "We hope that these investments will find answers to the most pressing medical problems. We also hope that this will inspire others to join us in the pursuit of scientific and medical breakthroughs."

The new donation comes as the US president calls on the private sector and foundations to join the "cancer moon landing program" to advance the goal he set in February to reduce cancer deaths in the US by 50 per cent over the next 25 years.

Professor Peter Kuhn (Peter Kuhn), a cancer researcher at the University of Southern California, said the scale of the donation and its investment in complementarity demonstrated the trust of philanthropists such as the Bezos family in academia and that they would give value back to society.

Lynch said the Fred Hatch Cancer Center hopes to speed up the pace of clinical trials, with the goal of passing the review and starting trials within 90 days.

Nilofer S. Azad, a professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University's Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, said the work that researchers and clinicians will be able to do at Fred Hatch Cancer Center will also benefit patients and researchers in other parts of the United States. "We can use scientific knowledge to change patient care in practical ways, but it does require a lot of resources," she said. "

In September, Fred Hatch Cancer Center received a large donation of $78 million from Stuart and Molly Sloan. In 2021, the agency reported that about $86.4 million, or 8 per cent of its total revenue of $984 million, came from charitable donations.

"the research gives you hope and gives us hope that future patients may have different choices," Lynch said. "

The Bezos Family Foundation, a charity established by Bezos in the process of using Amazon to create huge wealth, has donated billions of dollars to charity. Since her divorce in 2019, Bezos's ex-wife Mackenzie MacKenzie Scott has donated more than $12 billion to nonprofits.

This year, many billionaires focus their donations on cancer research. In February, KKR co-founder Henry Kravis and his wife, economist Mary Joseph Kravis, donated $100 million to the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center at New York Memorial Hospital. Recently, Blackstone CEO Jon Jon Grey and his wife donated $55 million to Pennsylvania College to fund a research institute focused on early detection and prevention of breast, ovarian, pancreatic and prostate cancer.

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