Tuesday December 5, 2017. Under a marquee Protecting from the Californian Sun of Pasadena (United States), a small platform brings together a who’s most unusual Who’s who: alongside the city mayor, Terry Torneck, and the president of the prestigious California technology institute (Caltech), Thomas Rosenbaum, the neuroscientist Richard Andersen and the Biologist Stephen Mayo rub billionaires, Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen, of Chinese and Singaporean origins.
These entrepreneurs, who then live in Singapore, made a fortune by developing Shanda Interactive Entertainment, the biggest online games company in China. That day, shovels in hand, they inaugurate the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience site, intended for basic research.
“Caltech is not the first university we are talking about, but the first with which we collaborate”explains the billionaire in front of a hundred researchers gathered. Richard Andersen adds: “Understanding brain operations and dysfunctions is one of the great challenges of humanity. [L’apport de la famille Chen] gives us resources and space to be able to have a global impact. »» And how! The couple undertook, in December 2016, to pay $ 115 million (99.2 million euros) to university. Richard Andersen remembers the surprise email received in the summer of 2015 “Following a television show on [ses] research that the Chen had watched in Singapore ”. They have “Met in Caltech and, given the amounts mentioned”he has “Quickly referred to [son] administration ».
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