Investors Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey are interested in the new medical specialty of regenerative medicine—which is developing ways to repair, replace, or regrow body tissues that are not functioning. Once a science-fiction dream, medical scientists are now discovering they can grow organs, skin, and other body parts to help victims of disease, accident, war, or genetic breakdown.
Between 2012 and 2014, the couple donated $25 million to establish an institute at Northwestern University that applies nanotechnology—the manipulation of matter at the molecular level—to regenerative medicine. One year later they added another $92 million to their gift to broaden their support for regenerative medicine. The gift allowed the university to break ground on a new biomedical research tower that will be completed in 2018. In addition to advancing fundamental understanding of how the body builds and repairs tissue, the Querrey/Simpson gift aims to speed development of drugs, fresh procedures, and clinical trials that will allow doctors at Northwestern to bring patients new solutions to cancer, burns, trauma, and degenerative diseases.
- Chicago Tribune report, chicagotribune.com/news/ct-northwestern-medicine-donation-20150305-story.html