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On April 26, the University of Chicago
officially opened its largest science building and announced
that Ellen and Melvin Gordon, who operate Tootsie Roll
Industries, Inc., have donated $25 million to name the
building. The Ellen and Melvin Gordon Center for Integrative
Science houses scientists in the Divisions of the Biological
Sciences and the Physical Sciences, allowing them to
pursue innovative research that crosses traditional
boundaries between physics, chemistry and biology.
“This generous gift will support research of a
kind that reflects the core values of our University—innovative
discovery crossing disciplinary boundaries and unmasking
ideas of sufficient size and quality to create new paradigms
of thought,” said James Madara, MD, the Sara and
Harold Lincoln Thompson Distinguished Service Professor,
Dean of the Division of the Biological Sciences and
the Pritzker School of Medicine, and University of Chicago
Vice President for Medical Affairs.
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The Ellen and Melvin Gordon Center
for Integrative Science encompasses 400,000 square feet
and is located at 929 East 57th Street. Scientists began
moving into the building last June. When it becomes
fully occupied later this year, the Ellen and Melvin
Gordon Center for Integrative Science will bring together
100 senior scientists, along with 700 additional researchers
and students.
The Gordon Center will house biologists,
physicists, and chemists whose research will mostly
occur at the nanoscale, or the scale of atoms and molecules.
It is this scale at which many problems in these three
fields merge. Occupying the heart of the building to
tackle these problems will be the Institute for Biophysical
Dynamics, which was jointly founded in 1998 by the Divisions
of Biological and Physical Sciences. Work within the
Institute could influence developments as diverse as
molecular-based computing techniques to more effective
cancer treatments.
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Also housed in the Gordon Center
and pursuing similar sorts of interdisciplinary research
will be the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Ben
May Cancer Research Institute, the Chemistry Department,
and the James Franck Institute.
Serving as a director of Tootsie
Roll Industries since 1968, Ellen Gordon was named president
of Tootsie Roll in 1978, becoming the second woman to
be elected president of a company listed on the New
York Stock Exchange. Her family has been involved with
Tootsie Roll since 1948, when her father, William B.
Rubin, became president of what was then known as the
Sweets Company of America. Ellen’s husband, Melvin,
succeeded Rubin as chairman in 1962.
“There is such visionary
leadership, and the scientific track record is so extraordinary.
They have made so many important discoveries,”
says Ellen about scientists at the University of Chicago.
Speaking about her family’s gift to name the Center,
she continues, “The payback will be great as the
promise of a greater—and sweeter—future
becomes a reality for so many.”
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