McKnights’ gift to UF’s brain institute aids drive to discover why memory loss often occurs with aging

Today’s unveiling of a new name for the University of Florida Brain Institute also featured the announcement of a “Molecules to Mind” research campaign to define why many people lose memory as they grow older.

Institute Executive Director William Luttge announced the campaign during the campus ceremony at which the institute was named for the late Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight, in honor of their extraordinary financial gift. A new raised-letter sign now features the McKnight name on the front of the institute building facing Newell Drive off southwest Archer Road.

“A $15 million donation by the McKnight Brain Research Foundation in Miami, along with an anticipated $15 million in matching dollars from the state, provide the foundation for this major expansion of memory-related research,” Luttge said.

“The McKnights’ donation was the largest single cash gift received by the University of Florida, and guarantees a legacy of support for research of the brain in the area of memory loss,” said UF President Charles Young, who hosted the program at the brain institute building. Young said the gift also signals to the worldwide community that UF is a major player in this important field of research.

Luttge pledged that the earnings from the $30 million endowment will be used to orchestrate a campuswide, multidisciplinary program of basic research to decipher the mechanisms by which memories are formed, stored and retrieved, and to determine what causes memory impairments associated with aging. He said the expanded research also will include the development of therapies designed to prevent or alleviate memory loss in humans.

“We have a wide diversity of talented faculty at UF and with the closely affiliated North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System ready to expand this research effort,” he added.

Luttge said the first big step in this campaign is already under way---to recruit a leading scientist to fill a $4 million eminent scholar position funded through the McKnight endowment. The person selected to fill this position will develop a broad-based program of memory research.

Dr. Kenneth Berns, UF vice president for health affairs, pointed out that the brain institute, with Luttge as the driving force, has successfully assembled a collection of “world-class scientists and clinicians who have engaged in groundbreaking research into the intricacies of the brain.”

Berns expressed appreciation to the McKnight foundation trustees--- Dr. Lee Dockery, a former UF College of Medicine administrator, now retired and living in Gainesville; Dr. Michael L. Dockery, a UF medical graduate now practicing orthopedic surgery in Charlotte, N.C., and Dr. Nina Ellenbogen Raim for their support and confidence in fulfilling the goals and objective of the foundation. All three trustees participated in the ceremony along with Richard H. Chapman, who represents the Sun Trust Bank as the corporate trustee.