The University of California, San Francisco, announced Thursday that it would receive a $500 million gift — among the largest donations ever to any university — reinforcing the health-science university’s ascendency in research and education and promising to stoke the Bay Area’s already white-hot life sciences industry.
The money from the Helen Diller Foundation comes on top of $700 million in other large donations since 2014. Much of the money will be used to recruit talented scientists and fund cutting-edge but risky ideas — the sorts of investments that can sprout biotech startups.
