On Jun. 28, 2014, The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute has received the largest-ever single donation to a local organization, a $275 million gift aimed at helping the La Jolla-based center speed up development of drugs and therapies to treat afflictions such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

The anonymous donor’s money reflects a national movement in which business and government are pressing researchers to do more to transform basic life-science discoveries into new medications, devices and other clinical advancements. The field, called translational medicine, is booming at places like the University of California San Diego, which is building a major center for “bench-to-bedside” research.

Before the announcement of the $275 million contribution, the top private gift to a beneficiary in the county was the $120 million that Irwin Jacobs, cofounder of Qualcomm, and his wife, Joan, gave to the San Diego Symphony in 2002.

The federal government, various hospitals such as the UC San Diego Health System, pharmaceutical conglomerates and biomedical institutes including Sanford-Burnham have been placing more emphasis on translational medicine in the past decade or so.

Sanford-Burnham has achieved some success in this field. For example, its scientists made the fundamental findings that led to Targretin, a drug used to treat cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. The institute also did the basic science for separate medications now being tested for repairing heart muscle and fighting rickets.