Salk Institute has announced that Irwin and Joan Jacobs have pledged $100 million to help launch the institute’s five-year, $500 million Campaign for the Future.

As part of the campaign to fund construction of the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Science and Technology Center, support key scientific programs, and increase Salk’s endowment, the Jacobs’ challenge gift will add $1 to every $2 pledged as a naming or endowment gift by June 30, 2022. The new facility will house four scientific centers of excellence, advancing discoveries in plant biology, computational biology, engineering, cancer, and aging; and provide much-needed research and administrative space to expand the institute’s scientific efforts, including the development of new drugs and therapies to fight cancer and neurodegenerative diseases and solutions to address climate change.

Longtime supporters of the institute, the couple helped establish the Crick-Jacobs Center for Computational and Theoretical Biology and created Salk’s Innovation Grants program, which funds early-stage, potentially trailblazing research ideas that otherwise would not attract traditional funding. From 2006 to 2016, Irwin Jacobs served as Salk’s board chair and spearheaded the institute’s first capital campaign, which raised $360 million.

“Joan and I continue to expand our family tradition of supporting effective nonprofit institutions with the potential to positively impact many lives,” said Jacobs. “We focus on projects that have well-defined goals and good leadership, and Salk is exemplary in both ways. We strongly advocate expanded philanthropy in support of basic science and engineering.”

(Image credit: Salk Institute)