The University of Leicester has received the largest gift in its history, a £7m grant for cardiovascular research.

The John and Lucille van Geest Foundation has made the gift to benefit the study of personalised medicine in the cardiovascular field. The donation will help build a research facility near the university’s present Cardiovascular Research Centre, and includes £4.5m allocated to a research fund, named after the foundation, to assist the university’s researchers in attracting more funding for studies into cardiovascular disease.

It is the second multi-million pound donation to medical research in less than a month, following an anonymous donation of £20m, evenly split between Cancer Research UK’s Francis Crick Institute and for the building of a cancer immunology unit at the University of Southampton.

Leicester University’s vice-chancellor Professor Sir Robert Burgess said the donation is a “transformational gift” which would enable a “step change” in the institution’s research capacity.

The donation comes as the van Geest foundation starts to spend out its endowment. A spokesperson for the foundation said the gift built on the organisation’s history of funding medical research, and is part of an attempt to build a legacy for the foundation once it is wound up.

“At this seminal moment in the life of the foundation following our decision to wind it up, our strategic approach is to focus the distribution of its remaining funds on a few medical research areas; working with selected leading institutions and investigators who are highly regarded in their field,” said the spokesperson.

Steve O’Connor, director of development at University of Leicester, said: “This very special gift reflects the power of philanthropy to transform academic research capacity; speed up the continual search for more breakthroughs that will benefit patients locally and across the UK and further endorses the University’s position as a leading centre of excellence for heart research.”

 

Picture: Janica Auluck - PhD student; Professor Nilesh Samani - head of department of Cardiovascular Sciences, Uof L, British Heart Foundation chair of cardiology; Professor Leong Ng (foreground) - Professor of Medicine and Therapeutics; Dr Don Jones - lecturer, in biomarkers and mass spectrometry; Steve O'Connor - director of development, University of Leicester.