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Date: March 25, 1999
Anthony B. Evnin Endows Professorship in Genomics at Princeton
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Anthony B. Evnin, a 1962 Princeton graduate and a member of the board of trustees, has made a $2.5 million gift to the University to endow the Anthony B. Evnin '62 Professorship in Genomics. The Evnin chair is the first to be created for Princeton's pioneering new Institute for Genomic Analysis, which will take a unique, multidisciplinary approach to examining how genes control the activities of living organisms.
Evnin is a general partner of Venrock Associates of New York, a venture capital partnership that specializes in information technology and life science investments. An adviser to Princeton's programs in science and technology, he also serves as a director of the Princeton University Investment Company, which manages the University's $4.8 billion endowment.
"With this generous gift, Tony Evnin has significantly advanced our efforts to establish a broad-based new institute that will explore many of the most challenging and fundamental questions of life science," said University President Harold S. Shapiro. "Tony has been a great friend to Princeton for many years, and we are grateful for his leadership, his foresight and his continuing support."
Research at Princeton's Institute for Genomic Analysis will focus on translating the expanding wealth of information on genetic sequences into important discoveries about nature and biology. Building on Princeton's strengths in the sciences and engineering, the institute will bring together experts not only in molecular biology, but also in fields such as physics, chemistry, computer science and engineering -- disciplines with powerful analytic tools for manipulating large data sets and managing complexity. In an environment where the usual disciplinary boundaries will fall away, investigators will work to identify ways in which discrete bits of biological information are integrated to generate the functions of living organisms.
Princeton launched its Genomics Institute last spring and recently appointed Shirley Tilghman, the Howard A. Prior Professor of the Life Sciences and one of the nation's most prominent molecular biologists, as founding director.
"Genomics is one of today's most exciting scientific frontiers. I think that with Princeton's broad strengths across the biological and physical sciences, and in engineering, it is very valuable and appropriate for the University to create an institute involving so many different disciplines," said Evnin, who serves on the advisory boards of both the molecular biology department and the Council on Science and Technology. "I have the greatest regard for Dr. Tilghman, and I know that under her guidance, Princeton will have a research center that will make significant contributions to this field and to the education of future generations of students at Princeton."
A general partner of Venrock Associates since 1975, Evnin majored in chemistry at Princeton and received his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Active in alumni activities, Evnin served as a University trustee from 1987 to 1991 and was named to a ten-year term as a charter trustee in 1997. A long-time supporter of Princeton, Evnin established a lecture series on science and technology topics in 1991. He also serves on the boards of Axys Pharmaceuticals Inc., Centocor Inc., Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals Inc. and several other companies.
Evnin's gift is part of The Anniversary Campaign for Princeton, launched in 1995 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the University's charter. The Campaign, which now has raised more than $723 million, is seeking to raise a total of $900 million to strengthen the University's programs of teaching, scholarship and research.