The University of Oklahoma’s Oklahoma City health campus will be renamed after a $150 million gift from energy executive Harold Hamm, the largest single gift in the university’s history, according to a Sept. 22 news release shared with Becker’s.
The campus, home to OU Health, the state’s only academic health system, will become the Harold Hamm Health Campus at the University of Oklahoma. The gift brings Mr. Hamm’s lifetime giving to OU to nearly $250 million, making him the largest individual donor in university history, the release said.
Of the total, $50 million will go to the OU Health Harold Hamm Diabetes Center, which Mr. Hamm helped establish in 2007 with a lead gift after his own Type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Within that, $30 million will support newly recruited Executive Director John Kirwan, PhD, and his research priorities, while $20 million will fund capital improvements and research infrastructure.
NIH research dollars at OU tied to the diabetes center have grown from $5 million to $33 million since its founding, according to the release. Mr. Hamm has invested more than $50 million in the center to date.
The remaining $100 million will support the broader campus, which houses six health professions colleges and more than 4,100 students, and educates 80% of Oklahoma’s healthcare workforce. The campus earned its first Top 100 ranking in NIH funding this year, placing it among the top 4% of institutions nationally that receive NIH support, according to the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research.
“Our goal is simple: turn what we learn in the research lab into better care at the bedside,” OU Health President and CEO Jonathan Curtright said in the release. “Bringing more leading researchers and physician-scientists to Oklahoma through Project 200 means more clinical trials, new treatments and the latest discoveries reaching our patients sooner.”
Mr. Curtright told Becker’s in July that securing resources, including philanthropy, would require “laser-like focus” as the system continues to grow, and he described Project 200 as OU Health’s largest current investment. The initiative aims to recruit more than 200 research-intensive faculty members, 150 of them in the College of Medicine.
OU Health marked its fifth anniversary this year and handles more than 1 million patient visits annually, according to the release.
