The Red Gates Foundation, a private charitable foundation based in Richmond, has committed $50 million to Virginia Tech’s medical research institute in Roanoke — equaling the largest gifts ever made to the Blacksburg university.
The new financial commitment is aimed at accelerating health sciences research at Virginia Tech, and some of the funding will go toward efforts in Greater Washington, the school said Tuesday.
The Red Gates Foundation was established in 2020 by the estate of Richmond businessman Hunter Goodwin, who died of cancer early that year at the age of 51. The $50 million commitment equals the 2018 donation made by the Horace G. Fralin Charitable Trust, as well as Heywood and Cynthia Fralin, to name the school’s Roanoke research institute the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion. That donation also supported research there. In 2021, aerospace and defense giant The Boeing Co. committed $50 million to Virginia Tech’s computer science-focused innovation campus in Alexandria.
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