A million-dollar gift for the Mt. Sinai Hospital laboratory donated by Frank Z. Atran, a Russian-born Jew who immigrated to the United States in 1940, was announced here today. The gift will be used to complete the construction of a laboratory building with space and facilities for 350 laboratory workers now engaged in one of the largest research programs in medical science.
Mr. Atran, who was born in 1885 at Smila, near Kiev, studied in Lodz where he was active in the Jewish Socialist Bund. After the Russian Revolution he left Russia and went into business in France and Belgium. When the Nazi armies invaded these countries, in 1940, he emigrated to the United States. Following the defeat of Ritler Mr. Atran reorganized his business enterprises in Europe, but at the same time settled permanently in the United States and became an American citizen.
The million-dollar gift to Mt. Sinai Hospital was contributed through the Atran Foundation, which he founded several years ago. One floor of the Atran Building which will be constructed at the hospital will be used for the Physics Department, with facilities for research and routine studies of radio-active agents. Two floors will house the Department of Bactericlogy and Virology, and another two will be available for the Chemistry Department. The two top floors will house a complete hospital for animals to be used for research.
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