Former US presidential candidate Ross Perot may have derailed the Republican Party’s hopes of reelecting George Bush Sr. in 1992, but the Texas businessman is now proving to be a blessing for another Republican ambition — namely winning what former President Richard Nixon coined the ‘War on Cancer’.

In a gift as big as his much caricatured ears, Perot is donating $20 million to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for research into new personalized cancer therapies. Perot, whose total fortune is estimated by some at around $3.5 billion, had previously given more than $40 million to support biomedical research at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

In Perot’s long-winded style, best exemplified by his half-hour prime-time TV infomercials, the donation will be paid in $2 million installments over ten years. But unlike in 1992, when he split the presidential vote in the Democratic candidate’s favor, the present-day donation will be divided equally between two new MD Anderson Centers: the Center for Targeted Therapy and the Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy.

(Hat tip: GenomeWeb)

Image: Wikimedia Commons