The Scripps Research Institute Thursday announced a $2 million gift from a foundation created by the Skaggs retailing family.
The funds from the Salt Lake City-based ALSAM Foundation will support graduate students, according to TSRI, a life sciences research organization.
“This new endowment, which brings the family’s total gifts to TSRI to approximately $131 million, will help us continue to recruit the best students for advanced training at the intersection of biology and chemistry,” said TSRI CEO Peter Schultz. “In so doing, the gift also benefits our faculty, whose research programs will be enhanced by the efforts of these outstanding fellows.”
Two members of the Skaggs family — Claudia Skaggs Luttrell and Mark Skaggs — are TSRI trustees and sit on the foundation’s grants committee.
“At the ALSAM Foundation, we carry on the legacy of my parents’ belief in the importance of education and medical research for the betterment of humankind,” Luttrell said. “We hope this gift will fulfill this philosophy by training the next generation of scientists, while contributing to the scientific knowledge that underpins new therapeutic discoveries.”
Beginning this fall, one member of the entering class will be selected by the TSRI admissions committee as a Skaggs Fellow. The selectee’s first-year stipend will be paid from the new endowment funds. In subsequent years of study, the student will receive a research supplement of up to $5,000, according to TSRI.
The Skaggs family built its fortune by helping to start drug store and grocery chains, including Safeway, and later made a series of acquisitions that brought stores like Lucky’s and Sav-On under their control. Their company was bought out by Albertsons in 1999.
–City News Service
