On Sept. 30, 1999, the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, named for Marin County philanthropists Leonard and Beryl Buck, opened its research facility, and was the first independent institution in the United States to respond to a call from the National Institute of Medicine to establish ten centers to study aging.

Dr. Leonard Buck was a pathologist at the University of California, San Francisco; Beryl Buck was trained as a nurse. Prior to her death in 1975, she asked that the Buck estate be used, in part, “to extend help toward the problems of the aged.” The Institute is built on approximately 488 acres of land on Mt. Burdell in Novato, California, 25 miles north of San Francisco.