"A foundation established by the estate of Richmond philanthropist Bill Goodwin‘s late son, Hunter, has made a $50 million commitment to support cancer and neuroscience research at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, Virginia Tech announced Tuesday.

Virginia Tech President Tim Sands said in a statement: 'We are grateful for this extraordinary gift from the Red Gates Foundation supporting Virginia Tech’s commitment to health and biomedical sciences. As we work to significantly increase the impact of our biomedical research, this gift will accelerate our timeline and help recruit world-leading researchers to join us in fighting diseases that impact millions of people worldwide.'

The institute will use a majority of the gift to recruit 14 researchers mainly focused on cancer, with some also focused on neuro-engineering — applying engineering tools to studying how the brain works — and computational neuroscience, which creates computer models of brain functions to research the brain and its responses to stimuli. Eleven of the new hires will be tenured or tenure-track faculty, and three will be non-tenure-track," reports Virginia Business.

Photo: Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC. Photo courtesy Virginia Tech.