Marvin Caruthers, a University of Colorado professor who became a biotechnology multimillionaire, donated $20 million to the university Tuesday to help construct a biotechnology center on Boulder's east campus.
"I live here, and I want this community to grow and be productive," Caruthers said.
Caruthers described his vision of the center as a place where physicists will lunch with biologists, mathematicians will occupy offices next to chemists, and students will learn about cell signaling, prosthetics design and the physics of the heart.
"People living next door to each other - that's really what you need to do modern molecular biology that solves real- world problems," Caruthers said.
The gift is the largest ever given to CU-Boulder by a faculty member, the university reported, and one of the largest gifts the university has received.
The $115 million research and teaching building, covering 260,000 square feet, will be named, pending approval of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, for Caruthers' late wife, Jennie Smoly Caruthers, who died of cancer last year.
Chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson said construction could begin in 12 to 18 months, depending on fundraising, which will include a $25 million request to the Colorado legislature this session.
The university asked for $23 million in construction assistance in the past legislative session and was denied, Peterson said.
This year's increase reflects inflation and the rising cost of building materials, he said.
The new facility would eventually house about 60 faculty members in the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology.
The group, supported by other donations and grants, today involves about 20 faculty members scattered across the campus, said director Leslie Leinwand.
Caruthers, a biochemist, earned his fortune in biotechnology - both in drug development and the design of new research instruments.
He co-founded Amgen Inc. and Applied Biosystems Inc. in Boulder in the early 1980s, and more recently, Array Biopharma Inc. and Dharmacon Research Inc.
The pharmaceutical company Amgen, now based in Thousand Oaks, Calif, is the largest biotechnology company in the world, employing nearly 20,000 people.
Caruthers received a National Medal of Science from the White House earlier this year, for his work designing techniques to build DNA and RNA - the molecules of heredity.
Jennie Smoly Caruthers was also a Ph.D. scientist and researcher and studied cellular energy processing, then neurobiology, and later worked as a patent agent, Caruthers said.
Denise Brown, director of the Colorado Bioscience Association, said Caruthers' gift is an enormous investment in an interdisciplinary effort with real-life utility in mind.
Brown compared the effort to interdisciplinary programs at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and Colorado State University.
"I think all three of these efforts will end up with profound impacts on human health," Brown said. "The talent is there, now the organization and resources are being added."
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-954-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
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