Chaos Continue UCI Giving: $8.1 Million
UC Irvine announced Tuesday that Allen Chao and his siblings have given an $8.1-million gift to its College of Medicine, a donation coming just months after the pharmaceutical executive was successfully treated for stomach cancer at the university’s medical center.
The donation, the third largest in the university’s history, will fund expanding research into genetic causes of cancer and will create diagnostic, prevention and outreach programs aimed at improving the health of Asian Americans.
“This is particularly connected to my personal experience, and I want to share with others the knowledge I gained: that prevention is extremely important for cancer patients,” he said.
Chao, the 54-year-old chief executive and founder of Watson Pharmaceuticals in Corona, was diagnosed with cancer during a trip to Taiwan in June.
“I happened to have a courtesy routine exam that discovered the cancer, and it was confirmed at UCI,” he said, adding that short of that good fortune, the cancer might not have been detected in time to have it treated.
The exam included an endoscopic look inside the stomach, which is routine in Asia but not generally performed in the United States as part of regular checkups, he said. Asian Americans are at increased risk for stomach cancer, as well as cancer of the liver, nose and throat.
Cumulative giving to UCI by the Chao family now stands at $13.8 million. It makes the family the third-largest donor to UCI, exceeded only by Henry and Susan Samueli, who in the past three months gave $20 million to the university and $5.7 million to the medical school, and by Arnold and Mabel Beckman, who have given the school $16.3 million.
Depending on how you divide up the Beckman bequests, the Chao family is the largest cumulative donor to the College of Medicine, according to university officials.
UCI Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone praised the family’s largess.
“This gift represents one more example of the Chao family’s remarkable legacy of generosity on behalf of the university,” Cicerone said in a statement. “It also underscores their concern and compassion for the plight of those battling cancer, and their desire to help us aggressively search for its causes and cures.”
The Chao family--Allen and his brother, Richard, and sisters, Phyllis Hsia and Agnes Kung--previously had given $5.7 million in a series of gifts. Family members live in Orange County.
The Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at the UCI Medical Center in Orange was named for the family after a donation of $2.4 million in 1995. That money targeted treatment and the clinical side of cancer therapies.
In 1997, the family gave $2 million to fund gene research by equipping labs and paying salaries to improve cancer diagnosis and prevention.
The latest gift will be used to complete construction of Sprague Hall, which is dedicated to genetic cancer research. Part of the building on the Irvine campus will be renamed the Chao Family Cancer and Genetics Laboratories.
Some of the funds will support magnetic resonance imaging research into cancer at its formative stages and gene-probe research to explore what switches cancer cells on and off.
Finally, the university will renovate its endoscopy clinic at the medical center and will create a new research program into the genetics of stomach, liver, nose and throat cancers.
