Phil Knight, the billionaire co-founder of Nike, has made a record-breaking donation towards cancer research to his alma mater. Knight, along with his wife, Penny, handed the Oregon Health & Science University’s cancer center a whopping $2 billion, which the Portland-based institution said was the largest single donation ever given to an American university, reports The New York Times. “We couldn’t be more excited about the transformational potential of this work for humanity,” the couple said in a statement. The $2 billion will go towards improving “diagnostic capabilities” and ensuring greater access to clinical trials crucial to combating cancer, the university said. Knight, who approved the iconic swooshing tick logo synonymous with Nike, has often donated large sums to his former university where he ran track and field, with several buildings on campus named after him. Dr. Brian Druker, the institute’s chairman of leukemia research, said the Knights’ previous donations had helped establish successful early cancer detection programs and other tests which have “revolutionized” the way they can detect and treat cancer. Knight, 87, worth an estimated $35.4 billion, according to Forbes, stood down as Nike’s president and chief executive in 2004 before retiring as the company’s chairman in 2016.
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