Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has announced a $20 million gift from local businesswoman and longtime benefactor Edith L. Wolff.

The gift will establish the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Institute, which will conduct biomedical research on the prevention and treatment of disease. The goals of the institute, which has a mandate to back promising research opportunities that depend on interdepartmental collaboration and lack other major sources of funding, reflect those of BioMed 21, the university's multidisciplinary research initiative to rapidly translate basic research findings into advances in medical treatment.

For more than thirty years, Wolff and her late husband, Alan, supported research at the medical school. Edith Wolff endowed two professorships at the school and also established the Edith L. Wolff Scholarship-Loan Fund, a non-interest-bearing fund for medical students. In 2004, she received an honorary doctorate from Washington University in recognition of her extraordinary support of life-saving medical research.

"Mrs. Wolff's commitment to the school of medicine will enhance research efforts within many of our departments and have a profound positive impact on [our] research mission," said Dr. Larry J. Shapiro, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the school of medicine. "I'm thankful for her generosity, which will enable interdisciplinary research that is so essential to progress in modern biomedical science."