The University of Southern California (USC) has announced more than $85 million in funding from the Alfred E. Mann Foundation for Biomedical Engineering as part of a gifted investment—now valued at $230 million—to support expansion of academic and research opportunities at the intersection of biomedical engineering and health science.

The gift from Giving Pledger Alfred E. Mann—founder of the biopharmaceutical company MannKind, who died in 2016—will be used to fund a $50 million endowment for the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences to bolster student scholarships and faculty recruitment and integrate a university-wide biomedical innovation research infrastructure and a $35 million endowment to the Department of Biomedical Engineering to expand medical engineering research, attract top faculty, and strengthen collaboration with the Keck School of Medicine of USC. In recognition of the gift, both the pharmacy school and biomedical engineering department will be renamed after Mann.

In addition, the gift will fund interdisciplinary endowed chairs across multiple schools, health science-related research, innovation and student learning, and the continued support of the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering, to which Mann had donated more than $174 million since 1998.

“This sweeping initiative reflects Alfred Mann’s pioneering vision and has the power to expand human understanding in pharmaceutical sciences and biomedical engineering,” said USC president Carol L. Folt. “The Mann Foundation’s generosity will enhance USC’s academic research community and our ability to educate the next generation of providers and researchers, drive scientific innovation and create commercially successful medical products that improve public health.”

(Photo credit: Unsplash/Yansi Keim)