Tech Topics - Summer 2008 - (Page 23) GivingBack R&D Catalyst Byers establishes Institute for Sustainable Systems Brock Family Initiatives Support Cancer Research B tremendous level of leverage and impact. TECHTOPICS | SUMMER 2008 “ rook Byers has made a multimillion dollar commitment to establish the Interdisciplinary Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems at Georgia Tech. It was created to “keep Tech among the top universities in the world that can bring together all the pieces to solve the multidisciplinary problems of innovative energy creation, storage transmission and effective use,” said Byers, EE 68, a partner with the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Menlo Park, Calif. An international search is under way to select the first Byers Institute director. He will hold the Hightower Chair and serve as the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Environmental Technology. Augmenting the chair will be the David M. McKenney Family Professorship in Sustainability, Energy and Environmental Studies, which is being established through a commitment from David M. McKenney, Phys 60, IE 64. McKenney is chairman of McKenney Management Corp. and a past president of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association. The Institute for Sustainable Systems is anticipated to be a catalyst for Tech’s global leadership in research and development that examines how components that affect global sustainability interact and ways to minimize their combined effects. “Tech’s demonstrated strengths in engineering, physics, chemistry, materials, fluids and systems make it a natural to be a leader and an example for university and government research and development organizations around the world,” Byers said. Georgia Tech is on the “world stage in sustainability” because of its expertise and discoveries in applications such as solar combustion, biofuels, batteries, turbines, nuclear, fuel cells, emissions, geothermal and industrial processes, Byers said. He has been a venture capital investor since 1972. He has been closely involved with more than 50 new technology-based ventures, more than half of which have already become public companies. He formed the first life sciences practice group in the venture capital profession in 1984 and led KPCB to become a premier venture capital firm in the medical, health care and biotechnology sectors. The Byers institute will focus initially on energy and global climate change, ecosystem response and economic development and environmental technology. Byers received the Distinguished Citizen Award in Life Science from the Commonwealth Club of California in 2006 and the University of California at San Francisco medal, its honorary degree equivalent, in 2007. He has served on the Georgia Tech Advisory Board, helped establish the startup incubator on campus and is a member of the Campaign Georgia Tech Steering Committee. He is on the board of directors of companies that have pioneered the medical use of molecular biology, monoclonal antibodies, molecular diagnostics and genomics and was chairman of the board for Idec Pharmaceuticals, Athena Neurosciences and Hybritech. Byers was president and director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists. He is a board member of the UCSF Medical Foundation, the New Schools Foundation, Stanford’s Bio-X Advisory Council, the Stanford Eye Council and TechNet. Endowed Chairs J who required a scholarship and loans to make it ohn and Mary Brock have established a chair possible. “They knew I wanted to be a chemical for an eminent scholar position in cancer nanomedicine at Georgia Tech and a complemen- engineer and that I thought Tech was an excellent choice and the best engineering school in the tary chair at Emory University. South.” The chairs created by John F. Brock III, ChE After graduation, 70, MS ChE 71, Brock went to work for president and CEO Procter & Gamble and of Coca-Cola later made return trips Enterprises Inc., to Tech to recruit and his wife will be chemical engineers. matched dollar for Throughout his career, dollar by the which included 10 Georgia Research years in Europe, Brock Alliance. said he has “always The Brock stayed connected to Family Chair and Georgia Tech.” GRA Eminent An Alumni Roll Scholar in Cancer Call donor for 38 Nanomedicine at years, Brock has also Georgia Tech is served on the Georgia designed to work Tech Advisory Board in concert with the for six years and as a Anise McDaniel member of his 25th Brock Chair and reunion fund GRA Eminent committee. He is Scholar in Cancer currently a member of Nanomedicine at the Georgia Tech Emory in Foundation board of advancing cancer trustees. treatment and The philanthropic detection. journey began for In addition to John Brock and his family want “to help researchers get Brock, his wife and meeting with Tech new leads in the early detection and treatment of cancer.” their children, Rebecca, and Emory John IV and Major, researchers and after his mother, Anise McDaniel Brock, was physicians about their nanomedicine programs, diagnosed with lung and colon cancer in 2006. the Brocks met with William J. Todd, IM 71, “My mother never smoked in her life but she president and CEO of the Georgia Cancer developed the same type of lung cancer that Coalition, about the role that organization could caused the death of Dana Reeve (a nonsmoker play. and widow of the late actor Christopher Reeve),” “We are so pleased that the Brock family has Brock said. decided to provide this significant support for “From the beginning of her illness, the cancer research through the Georgia Cancer oncologists at Emory consulted and followed her Coalition,” Todd said. treatment, which was primarily in Mississippi,” “By directing their gift to be made through Brock said. “We brought her to Atlanta for a few the coalition, the family’s commitment of weeks last fall to Emory’s Winship Cancer Center $750,000 for each endowed chair winds up being so they could monitor her treatment more closely worth around $3 million. That’s a tremendous and make sure that absolutely everything level of leverage and impact,” Todd said. “Gifts possible had been done for her. The care she like this bring us closer to the day when cancer received at Winship was outstanding. will be a much more manageable disease and a “After she passed away in early December, far less frequent occurrence.” Mary and our children started talking more Brock of Moss Point, Miss., entered Tech in about our interest in trying to help researchers 1966. “Both of my parents were very supportive of get new leads in the early detection and treatment of cancer.” GT my coming to Tech 42 years ago,” said Brock, “ The family’s commitment of $750,000 for each endowed chair winds up being worth around $3 million. That’s a 23
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