Weizmann Institute Gets $1.5 Million from Chicagoan for Chicagoan for Cancer Research

A $1.5 million gift for cancer research has been made to the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot by Chicago industrialist Arnold R. Meyer, according to Abraham Feinberg, chairman of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science and chairman of the institute’s board of governors. Matched by Israeli government funds, the gift will enable the construction of a cancer study center to be known as the Arnold R. Meyer Cancer Research Institute, Feinberg said.

Meyer, 55-year-old head of Arnold Meyer and Associates, a financial consulting firm, said he made the gift because “I was most impressed with the quality of the people at the Weizmann Institute, their work, their dedication and progress.” He said that “if there is a cure for cancer, it might well result from Weizmann Institute research.” Cancer research is presently conducted in four of Weizmann’s departments: genetics, cell biology, chemical immunology and biodynamics.

Meyer is a native of Rock Island, Illinois and a graduate of St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa, to which he donated the Arnold R. Meyer Student University Building. He is a board member of Chicago’s Jewish United Fund and a member of the Executive Committee of the Chicago Anti-Defamation League.

(The Weizmann Institute announced in Rehovot it would establish a $2 million research institute in physical biology as a memorial to the late Professor Aharon Katzir, who was killed in the May 30 Lydda Airport massacre. An international committee headed by Nobel Prize laureate Manfred Eigen is to supervise the center while Prof. Ephriam Katzir, brother of the late scientist, will head the center’s Israeli committee, Institute officials said. Biological macro-molecules, membrane structure and function, theoretical biology and other areas of research akin to the contributions of Prof. Katzir will be featured at the center.)