Duke University scientists will lead a biomedical research project funded with a $35 million gift by David H. Murdock, chairman and owner of Castle & Cooke, aimed at attacking diseases and maladies.
Duke University officials have said Murdock's gift is the largest ever made to the medical school.
"For the first time, we will be able to generate a global database of human health and disease that will provide us the opportunity to clearly transform medicine," said Dr. Victor J. Dzau, the university chancellor for Health Affairs.
The study, Measurement to Understand Reclassification of Disease Cabarrus/Kannapolis, will also include input from researchers at the University of North Carolina system and take place at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis.
The universities will focus on developing more effective treatments to several diseases including cancer and diabetes.
"Transformation has always been our mission at the research campus," said Murdock, also the chairman and owner of Dole Foods. "This research will reinvent how scientists prevent disease and save lives. It will take patients from despair to hope. And it will establish the campus as the new destination for discovery."