By James S. Tyree
As printed in The Oklahoman, June 28, 2007.

The University of Oklahoma will receive two major grants for medical research, officials announced Wednesday.

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation will give $7.5 million to OU's new research on diseases associated with aging, and the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation will donate $5 million to a private fundraising campaign for the OU Cancer Institute.

OU President David Boren announced the gifts during a University of Oklahoma Board of Regents meeting in Ardmore.

"We are now over the halfway mark in the $50 million fundraising campaign," Boren said of the OU Cancer Institute donation. The Noble Foundation gift lifts the total to $27 million.

Half of that donation will go toward construction of the OU Cancer Institute's $120 million, 213,000-square-foot facility to be built at the Health Sciences Center. The other $2.5 million will help pay for endowed faculty positions.

"No Oklahoman with cancer should have to leave the state to receive the latest cancer treatment," Boren said. "The Noble Foundation has moved us significantly forward in the university's goal of offering the highest standard of cancer treatment right here in Oklahoma."

The Reynolds Foundation's $7.5 million gift will have state matching funds for six endowed research positions, which will raise the total to $13.5 million.

The grant builds on the foundation's earlier grant of $11.2 million for geriatric medicine programs.

The six scientists will study neurodegenerative disorders and muscle degeneration that often afflict senior adults.

This article appeared in The Oklahoman, www.newsok.com, on June 28, 2007.