Pursuits

Billionaire Allen Gives $100 Million for Bioscience Research

  • Stanford, Tufts get $20 million grants to create new centers
  • Other recipients include one of the scientists behind Crispr

Paul Allen.

Photographer: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg
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Paul Allen, the billionaire owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team, will give away $100 million to fund risky life-science research by scientists such as the University of California professor who was key to discovering the gene-editing breakthrough Crispr.

The money is an initial commitment toward a larger 10-year plan to advance bioscience. The two biggest grants announced Wednesday, for $20 million each, will fund centers at Stanford University and Tufts University to look into computer modeling of infections of the immune system and how cell tissue is created, respectively.