Gift Will Help Fund Vaccine Lab

By Brittany Anas (Contact)
Monday, October 20, 2008 (Daily Camera)

A Boulder couple has pledged $2 million to a new University of Colorado biotechnology building, with the money going toward a laboratory where researchers will study and develop vaccines.

Jeannie and Jack Thompson — who met at The Sink on University Hill when they were University of Colorado students in the 1960s — are longtime donors to CU. Their latest gift coincides with Jeannie Thompson’s election as chairwoman of the CU Foundation’s Board of Directors, an appointment that the fundraising arm announced Monday.

Jeannie Thompson said she hopes the gift will inspire other CU supporters to donate to their areas of interest at the university.

“I am a firm believer in leading by example,” she said. Jeannie Thompson’s 12 years of working in research labs, including at the National Institutes of Health and the CU Hospital, helped motivate the gift.

Construction on the $128.3 million biotechnology hub at CU’s east campus will likely begin in the summer of 2009 and be completed by the fall of 2010. The building is designed to allow researchers from labs scattered across the campus to come together to solve complex biomedical problems.

The gift from the Thompsons will bolster the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, helping position CU to be a leader in biotechnology research. There already are 380 biotech companies in Colorado providing 16,000 highly skilled jobs, according to university officials. The center is expected to “grow” future employees, allowing those companies to recruit close to home.

Researchers at the lab to which the Thompsons donated will research new vaccines and ways to protect against illness, said Art Dawson, assistant vice president for development for the initiative.
The biotechnology hub will allow for work on creating cancer-detecting sensors and synthetic human tissue, as well as developing new pharmaceuticals, according to the university.

Leslie Leinwand, director of the initiative and a faculty member on the Boulder and Denver campuses, said the biotechnology hub will be a community of top researchers pooling their expertise to make new discoveries that have potential to improve people’s health.

The Thompsons’ other gifts to the university have included endowments that sponsor a history department graduate fellowship, writing awards for the Center of the American West and the Jazz Studies Program at the College of Music.

CU Foundation announces new board members The University of Colorado

Foundation board of trustees and board of directors announced the election of 11 new members and the re-election of two dozen returning board members.

Members of the board of directors have fiduciary responsibilities and oversee the foundation’s business and financial operations, while members of the board of trustees oversee and participate in fundraising, strategic planning and advising and assisting the board of directors.

Elected and re-elected members will serve three-year terms beginning this fall. Jean L. Thompson has been elected chairwoman of the board of directors, and Mary Lee Beauregard has been elected vice chairwoman.

Laura P. McGuire and Joseph H. Romig have been elected to the board of directors. They will join Edward N. Barad, Richard N. Brown and Jean L. Thompson, who have been re-elected to both the board of directors and the board of trustees.

William R. Barclay, William C. Caile, Zuhair H. Fayez, Lynda N. Gibbons, James C.T. Linfield, Michael S. Maurer, Marcia W. Pryde, Christopher S. Randall and Patrick J. Tierney have been elected as new board of trustees members.

Re-elected trustees are Jeffrey K. Adams, Gary R. Anderson, Edward N. Barad, Margaret M. Bathgate, Richard N. Brown, Lorin S. Chevalier, James H. Curry, Robert J. Eastman, Carl A. Eklund, Gene M. Ellerbee, Martha Coffin Evans, Michael F. Imhoff, David N. Karpel, Judith S. Liebman, Douglas S. Looney, John R. (Ron) Moore, Edward A. Osborne, Alan D. Phillips, Joseph H. Romig, Andrew J. Safir and Jean L. Thompson.