On Jul. 29, 1999, the University of Southern California (USC) announced that it had received a gift of $110 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation–the largest gift ever made to a medical school at the time and the largest single gift ever made by the Keck Foundation.

USC, which committed to raising $330 million in matching funds, renamed its medical school the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California to recognize the generosity of the foundation.

The gift will promote further progress in medicine through more effective interplay between a rising private medical school and a top-flight private academic medical center, capitalizing on a research culture that encourages collaboration among medical faculty and their colleagues in engineering and the physical, life and social sciences. Researchers at the intersection of these disciplines foster innovation that spurs critical breakthroughs in medicine.