Biotech Foundations: $400M Gift Yields 'Manhattan Project' for Type I Diabetes

Most people's bucket lists include things like traveling to exotic places and reuniting with long lost friends. But philanthropists have harder decisions to make. In 2007, when Denny Sanford donated $400 million to the Sioux Valley Health System, of Sioux Falls, S.D., he turned to a panel of experts to decide how best to use the gift. His requirements were simple. The project should address a disease of relevance to the population of the region, and should cure it within the 73-year-old philanthropist's lifetime.