On Oct. 29, 2008, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) announced that Philip H. and Penny Knight have pledged to give $100 million to the OHSU Cancer Institute. The Nike founder’s gift – the largest in the history of OHSU – represents a critical step toward achieving the cancer institute’s ambitious goal to make Oregon’s cancer death rate the lowest in the nation.

In recognition of the transformational impact the donors’ generosity will have on the treatment of cancer, OHSU will rename its cancer institute — the state’s only National Cancer Institute-designated center — the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.

OHSU researchers are regular participants in the SPIE Biomedical Optics symposium each January at Photonics West. Many are conference chairs, program committee members, and contributing authors to the event in all areas of biomedical optics research.

The gift will establish a fund that can be used at the discretion of the institute’s director, Dr. Brian Druker, who assumed the post in 2007 with the goal of making Oregon the national leader in the prevention and treatment of cancer. In a highly competitive market for top faculty, the gift is expected to help attract researchers from other top cancer centers while motivating its existing faculty to remain at OHSU.

Druker, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, said that by bringing the best and brightest minds together, equipping them with the best resources, and supporting their efforts to target the underlying causes of cancer, the resulting breakthroughs will benefit cancer patients everywhere.

The pledge also calls for the first $2 million of the gift to complete labs in the Center for Cancer Cell Signaling in OHSU’s new Biomedical Research Building, which will be named the Linda Conant Laboratory Suite. Conant, a close friend of the Knight family, died of breast cancer in January.