Koch had wide-ranging interests concerning the life of the Institute, however, and in addition to cancer research, he supported many other causes and activities at MIT, including chemical engineering, childcare for employees, and athletics. At any given moment around MIT, beneficiaries of Koch’s gifts included faculty with endowed professorships, students with fellowships he supported — and toddlers in the childcare center he helped found.
“David Koch had a brilliant instinct for opportunities where the lever of his philanthropy could make a transformative difference,” says MIT President L. Rafael Reif. “As one example, his gift to launch the Koch Institute dramatically advanced a new strategy in which engineers and scientists push the frontiers of cancer research by working side by side. At the same time, he saw that the David H. Koch Childcare Center could play an indispensable role in helping young faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students manage the balance of family and career. We are grateful for his longstanding devotion to the Institute. Very few graduates have left such a broad and indelible mark on the life of MIT.”
“From my very first days as MIT’s president, David Koch became a friend, collaborator, supporter, and enthusiast,” says President Emerita Susan Hockfield, who led MIT from 2004 to 2012. “He already had a long history of generosity to MIT, but his commitment to accelerating progress against cancer gave particular force to MIT’s efforts to reimagine our own cancer research. David was one of this nation’s most generous donors to cancer research, and his engagement with many of the leading cancer research centers gave him an amazingly sophisticated understanding of the frontier of cancer biology and therapy.”
The Koch Institute emphasizes five main areas of research: the development of nanotechnology-based cancer treatments; new devices for cancer detection and monitoring; research about the molecular and cellular processes of metastasis; the advancement of personalized medicine, by studying cancer pathways and resistance to drugs; and research about how the immune system can fight cancer.
http://news.mit.edu/2019/david-koch-prominent-supporter-cancer-research-mit-dies-79-0823
