USC receives $150-million medical gift

Promising transformative steps in research, teaching and patient care, USC announced a $150-million donation from the W. M. Keck Foundation to its medical enterprise Monday — a gift university officials said would have a deep impact on the USC medical community moving forward.

Build up · After a $150-million donation from the W. M. Keck Foundation, the Keck School of Medicine will be integrated into the new Keck Medicine of USC brand. - Dieuwertje Kast | Summer Trojan

“This $150-million gift from the Keck Foundation will have a profound impact on our community and our world, today and for generations to come. It will be a catalyst for dramatic discoveries and developments in medical research, teaching and patient care,” President C. L. Max Nikias said in a statement released early Monday formally announcing the gift.

According to James Ukropina, vice president of the Keck Foundation, Nikias presented the foundation with a proposal for a donation of this magnitude in December 2010, a “real trigger” behind the gift.

The donation, which is to be distributed during the next 20 years, will be directed toward the recruitment of faculty in specific fields of study USC sees as on the verge of taking an important step forward, according to officials.

“The best way to grow our research portfolio is to recruit outstanding and transformative scientists from other universities and medical schools,” said Edward Crandall, chairman of the department of medicine at USC. “This gift will make it possible for us to reach further than we already do.”

Crandall sees the areas of stem cell and regenerative medicine, cancer research, neuroscience research and advances in the study of liver, pulmonary, kidney and cardiovascular diseases as among the fields where USC can continue to make the biggest strides.

As part of the largest donation in the history of the Keck Foundation, the entirety of the medical enterprise system at USC will be renamed as Keck Medicine of USC.

That enterprise has grown significantly in the past two years after USC purchased the Norris Cancer Hospital and the USC University Hospital in 2009 from Tenet Healthcare Corp., behind a strong push from Nikias, who was executive vice president and provost at the time.

The purchase of the hospitals allowed for greater collaboration between the medical school and patient care, and the university has worked to create a dynamic relationship between the two entities. School officials hope the gift will stimulate a greater interplay between the medical school and the academic medical center as well as foster growth and a relationship the Keck Foundation recognized as a commitment to medicine.

“The purchase of the hospitals signaled to us a serious commitment to medical care, both to expand and increase [advances in the medical field],”  Ukropina said.

The renamed Keck Hospital of USC, Keck Doctors of USC and the USC Norris Cancer Hospital will make up the Keck Medical Center of USC and will join the Keck School of Medicine under the umbrella brand.

This gift follows a $110-million donation the foundation made in 1999 to the medical school, which was renamed the Keck School of Medicine. The relationship between the Keck Foundation, which aims to back scientific progress, and USC has continued to be important.

“This gift reflects our commitment to bringing cutting-edge science, medicine and engineering together to find new and better ways forward,” Robert Day, CEO of the Keck Foundation said in the statement.

The donation’s impact on the medical school was especially important to the Keck Foundation as well as school officials.

“A great university needs a great medical school,” Crandall said. “USC’s investment in purchasing the hospitals and this Keck gift will both be tremendously important in enabling us to climb to the top of the rankings among medical schools.”

This gift marks another in a run of large donations the university has received in the time since Nikias’ inauguration in October 2010, which includes Julie and John Mork’s $110-million scholarship fund donation and Dana and David Dornsife’s $200-million donation to the renamed Dornsife College of Letters, Arts & Sciences .