Home > About BNE > Press Room > Current Articles > February > Donation in name of Holm could net UB $2M

Donation in name of Holm could net UB $2M

Business First by Allissa Kline, Buffalo Business First Reporter

Date: Monday, January 23, 2012

An anonymous donation from a University at Buffalo    faculty member, which could eventually total as much as $1 million, is intended to establish a research fund in honor of the late UB faculty member Bruce Holm.

University officials announced the match-challenge donation Monday. The donor, who has already contributed $250,000, has agreed to match, dollar for dollar, all donations of $10,000 or more up to $1 million, a UB spokesperson said. That means the gift total could be as much as $2 million.

The gift is meant to go toward the creation of the Bruce Holm Memorial Catalyst Fund. UB plans to use the fund to support the commercialization of discoveries and inventions of UB researchers during the phase between government financing and private equity investment.

Holm was 52 when he passed away from kidney cancer in February 2011. A UB faculty member since 1989, he was named executive director of the UB New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences in 2004.

The fund will be based in UB’s Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach. STOR works to promote products and services that UB faculty invents.

The campaign to meet the $1 million match-challenge began about three months ago, vice provost and STOR director Robert Genco said. The university is aiming to raise the money by 2014.