The Knight Cancer Institute, part of Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU), received a $2 billion commitment recently from Phil and Penny Knight. It is considered the largest single donation to a US university or academic health center to support future cancer care.

The gift will be made over 10 years to OHSU, located in Portland. It is a partner university with ARCS Oregon Chapter. Phil Knight, a co-founder of Nike, and his wife Penny, are Oregon residents.

With the magnitude of the donation, the Knight Cancer Institute would become a self-governed institution within OHSU, with its own board of governors, which will allow the institute to hire faculty, set its own compensation rates, and compete nationally for top cancer research talent. The inaugural president will be Brian Druker, a cancer researcher well known for his role in the discovery of Imatinib, a drug that turned a universally fatal form of leukemia into a survivable illness. The discovery led to a new class of cancer drugs and earned him the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, among the highest honors in research science.

“This gift is an unprecedented investment in the millions of lives burdened with cancer, especially patients and families here in Oregon,” said OHSU President Shereef Elnahal. “It is also a signal of trust in the superlative work that our clinicians, researchers, and teammates at the Knight Cancer Institute do every day. Dr. Druker’s vision around a multidisciplinary system of care — focused squarely on making the patient’s experience seamless from the moment they receive a diagnosis — will now become reality. And thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Knight, Oregon will be the place to do it.”

Phil Knight has a record of large donations to OHSU and other institutions. The Knight Cancer Institute is named after him. In 2013, the Knights pledged a $500 million donation to the Institute if the university could match it within two years. That challenge was met thanks to $200 million in bonds from the Oregon Legislature, $100 million from the late Gert Boyle of Columbia Sportswear, and donations from 10,000 individuals.

ARCS Oregon has supported graduate students at OHSU since 2005. Some of these Scholars have done research at the Knight Cancer Institute.

Julia Maxson, an ARCS Oregon Scholar Alum, is an associate professor with a lab at the Knight Institute. She is a cell biologist focused on translational leukemia research. Maxson’s husband, Ted Braun, was also supported by ARCS Oregon during his graduate school years and is an associate professor with his own lab.

“I was doing virtual visits with patients in rural Oregon when the news (of the donation) broke. Between calls, I rushed downstairs to catch the press conference announcing Phil and Penny Knight’s $2 billion gift to the Knight Cancer Institute,” Braun said. “It was history in the making and a reminder of why this matters. Patients with difficult-to-treat leukemias like Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukemia, Chronic Neutrophilic Leukemia, and treatment-resistant Chronic Myeloid Leukemia need better options.”

Braun explained that the generous gift will enable the Knight Institute to make substantial progress.

“This gift gives us the momentum to design new drugs, launch smarter precision trials, and bring hope to patients who need it most. We need to ensure access to all cancer patients across Oregon to cutting-edge treatments,” Braun said.