$50,000 Gift to Fund Study of DNA Regulation

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences has received a gift to fund DNA research from a donor who heard about UB's work in that area from his physician, who is an alumnus of the medical school.

The gift of $50,000 from Allan Wade Parker of San Francisco will be used to provide start-up research funds for scientists working primarily within the UB Department of Structural Biology at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, as well as at other centers in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

It also will encourage collaborative work in genetics research, following on a gift of $50,000 Parker gave earlier this year to the Department of Genome Sciences at his alma mater, the University of Washington.

Parker said the gifts were given with the intention that UB and the University of Washington will "combine knowledge and continue the innovative studies already under way at each institution in the field of human genetics."

Parker learned of UB's efforts in DNA research through his physician and friend, Martin Terplan, M.D., who graduated from UB's medical school in 1955. Terplan said the gift also represents Parker's desire to enable "other scientifically minded individuals in our society to participate in what is ultimately important for everyone -- the betterment of life."

George DeTitta, professor and chair of the UB Department of Structural Biology, as well as executive director and CEO of the Hauptman-Woodward Institute, praised Parker's "generous investment in research."

The gift, he said, will help underwrite a structural biology project that unites researchers at UB, HWI and Roswell Park Cancer Institute working on understanding how certain genes are turned "on" or "off" during vital stages of development and during certain disease states.

Parker's gift is part of UB's $250 million fund-raising campaign, one of the largest ever conducted by a public university in New York and New England.

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