The $170 million donation that Sanford Weill ’55 advanced to the University ahead of schedule in January is more valuable than its monetary worth alone, college officials say.

“We needed it as an inspiration … for others to come forward … with a gift,” said Stephen Cohen, associate provost and executive vice dean for administration and finance at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Around $135 million of the total donation will be used to fund the construction of a new 480,000 square foot medical research center in New York City, while the remainder will be put towards programming in Weill Hall, the new life sciences building on the Ithaca campus.

Cornell will be one of the beneficiaries of the late hotelier Leona Helmsley’s multi-billion dollar estate, The New York Times reported Wednesday. Helmsley, was known as the “queen of mean” according MSNBC, and she was able to amass her estimated $5 billion estate because of her cutthroat business mentality.

Sanford Weill ’55, whose name adorns multiple buildings throughout Cornell’s Ithaca and New York City campuses, has once again pledged a nine digit sum to his alma mater, helping the University continue to grow even as it faces a stringent budget deficit.

Vice President for University Communications Tommy Bruce confirmed last night that Weill gave the Weill Cornell Medical College $170 million in December and January in order to allow the University to build a new medical research building.Weill Donations

Weill Cornell Medical College has agreed to pay over $2.6 million to settle civil charges that Cornell defrauded the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense as it sought more than $14 million in federal research grants, Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin announced earlier this month.

The settlement resolves the charges that the government had brought against Cornell for filing false claims for federal research grant money. Cornell knowingly made false records and false statements in order to get fraudulent claims paid or approved by the federal government in connection with NIH and Department of Defense grants, according to the government’s complaint.

A new study by researchers in the Department of Public Health at Weill Cornell Medical College found that one in seven U.S. teens are Vitamin D deficient.

“Vitamin D is necessary for optimal calcium absorption,” stated Prof. Sandy Saintonge, clinical pediatrics and clinical public health, who performed the study alongside Prof. Heejung Bang, biostatistics and epidemiology, and Prof. Linda M. Gerber, epidemiology and ethnic disparities in disease outcomes, at Weill Cornell Medical College’s Department of Public Health .

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently awarded Weill Cornell Medical College two $100,000 grants as part of its Grand Challenges Explorations initiative. The five-year, $100 million initiative — which awards grants on a competitive basis — aims to foster and advance innovative solutions to complex diseases and other medical conditions.

In order to receive funding, researchers needed to submit two page proposals outlining why their project takes an unconventional or creative approach to solving medical problems.

Cornell’s longstanding tradition of not granting honorary degrees came into discussion again earlier this year when David Hajjar, dean of the Weill Cornell Medical College, proposed that the medical school be exempt from this policy to grant honorary doctorates of science. In May, the Faculty Senate voted against it.

Honorary degrees, which are conferred upon non-graduates, are a way of recognizing extraordinary achievements in public service or within a specific academic field. Such degrees are most commonly doctorates, and the recipients are selected through a faculty nomination process.

After 43 years as professor and administrator of the Weill Cornell Medical College, Dr. Daniel R. Alonso announced his retirement as dean of the school’s Qatar campus. When he leaves this January, he will be replaced by Deputy Dean Dr. Javaid Sheikh. Alonso’s retirement comes shortly after the graduation of WCMC-Q’s first class in May.

“He brought really bold vision to the project,” said Dr. Carol Storey-Johnson, senior associate dean of education, WCMC in Manhattan. “He had faith in the project at a time when people weren’t sure it would work.”

A Cornell medical researcher has been vindicated in his claim that a recently-released HIV vaccine would be unsuccessful after the drug was pulled last month from the market in South Africa.

Dr. Kendall A. Smith of Cornell Weill Medical College explained that the leading pharmaceutical company Merck’s vaccine went on to Stage II testing in South Africa because “the vaccine had no adverse affects in Stage I.”

Smith described that testing the effectiveness of this and all HIV vaccines is so difficult because there is no animal model for HIV. While doctors do test some vaccines on monkeys, because they have SIV (which affects simians as opposed to humans) it is difficult to find matching cures.

Nearly 70.3 million Americans over 12 years of age used tobacco at least once a month in 2004 according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This statistic is of increasing concern, as findings recently published by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College linked nicotine and atherosclerosis.

Nicotine, the addictive ingredient found in tobacco, stimulates reward pathways and releases certain neurotransmitters in the brain, according to the NIDA. These events lead to feelings of pleasure which shortly dissipate, creating a powerful addiction.

Not only is nicotine highly addictive, but it also presents other serious health risks.