The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has announced a $50 million commitment from alumnus and professor emeritus Paul Schimmel (PhD '66) and his family in support of the life sciences department.

The gift includes $25 million to establish the Schimmel Family Program for Life Sciences, which matches $25 million secured from other sources in support of the Department of Biology. The remaining $25 million will match additional gifts over the next five years to expand the Schimmel Family Program, which will support graduate training in the Department of Biology, as well as graduate students across MIT.

Schimmel's fifty-year affiliation with MIT includes thirty years of teaching and research. Though he left MIT in 1997 to join Scripps Research Institute, where he is the Ernst and Jean Hahn Professor, he has remained active in supporting the institute's research enterprise, specifically by assisting MIT graduate students. Schimmel and his wife, Cleo, provided an initially anonymous donation in support of Building 68, the most recent home for the Department of Biology, and also have provided support for graduate fellowships for outstanding women in the life sciences, the endowment of the Teresa Keng Graduate Teaching Prize, and what is now the department's Graduate Training Initiative.

"The life sciences educational enterprise spreads across a dozen departments at MIT," said Schimmel. "What makes the biology department and the life sciences at MIT so extraordinary is the singular ability to transfer knowledge and inventions to society for its benefit. That is much of why Kendall Square and Boston are what they are."

"We are extraordinarily grateful to Paul, Cleo, and the entire family," said Nergis Mavalvala, the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics and dean of the MIT School of Science. "Not only do the Schimmels understand, from a firsthand perspective, the need to support graduate students, but they also understand that these young researchers are the future of our life sciences endeavors outside of MIT, in fundamental research, biopharma industries, and beyond."