EUGENE, Ore. — Phil and Penny Knight donated another $500 million to the University of Oregon to help the university launch the second phase of the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact.
The university built the research campus in 2016 after the couple's first $500 million donation to the school. The second donation will fund a second building and add faculty positions, among other expenditures.
Since 2016, the Knight Campus faculty have developed new technologies that helped establish high-resolution 3D-printing methods that have the potential to make advanced medical implants.
"Other recent innovations include sensors that allow doctors to monitor the progress of bone regeneration in trauma patients, new methods of designing proteins to treat disease and synthesizing genes to fight disease, as well as new strategies to deliver proteins to repair damaged tissues," the university said in a release.
With the second $500 million donation, the university plans to build a 175,000-square-foot, multi-story bioengineering and applied science research building that will support expanded research programs and facilities.
The donation will also help fund 14 to 16 more faculty members and their teams in bioengineering, regenerative medicine, biomedical data science and other applied interdisciplinary sciences. The number of tenure-related faculty members at the Knight Campus will increase to 30.
"The work that will take place at the Knight Campus will improve people’s lives directly through innovative treatments and devices, and indirectly through company formation, jobs and economic development,” said University of Oregon president Michael H. Schill.
"This second $500 million gift accelerates our drive to greater heights of excellence, forging partnerships with other great universities, and creating incredible opportunities for students. It further secures our position as a global university, a destination for discovery, a hub of innovation, and a place of progress and answers," Schill said.
