MIT announced today that it has received a $100 million gift from David Koch, an MIT alum, a life member of MIT’s governing board and an executive of Koch Industries, for the transformation of the MIT Center for Cancer Research into the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. The current members of the CCR will join the new institute, including Tyler Jacks, who directs the CCR and will be the director of the Koch Institute (Jacks is also the David H. Koch Professor of Biology at MIT). Engineering faculty such as Bob Langer, will also become members, reflecting the institute’s focus: bringing engineering and biology together to tackle cancer.

The institute will be housed in a new building, which is expected to open by 2010, near the corner of Main and Vassar, next to MIT’s biology building, also named after Koch.

The Wall Street Journal said that Koch, 67, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer, donated the $100 million on the condition that MIT shorten its timeline for constructing the new building. According to the article, “…MIT had to agree to build the $280 million center whether or not it has raised the full 80% of funds that the Cambridge, Mass., university usually wants in hand before it breaks ground.”

Phil Sharp, who was one of the original members of the CCR, wrote an article describing in more detail the mission of the new institute and his hopes for its future.

The Koch Institute will be the newest neighbor of the Whitehead Institute, the Broad Institute, the Picower Institute, the McGovern Institute, and the Stata Center. Hm, I’m seeing pattern here. See NNB’s earlier roundup of philanthropy in Boston.