United Arab Emirates Gives $150-Million in Response to Hospital’s Proposal

The Children’s National Medical Center, in Washington, has received $150-million from the United Arab Emirates.

The donation, one of the biggest an American charity has received from a foreign source, will pay for a new institute that will research and develop treatments to make pediatric surgeries more precise, less painful, and less invasive.

The gift to Children’s came about in large part because of a push from the philanthropist Joseph E. Robert Jr., who in 2000 made a $25-million capital-campaign gift to establish a new surgical center at the medical center. Mr. Robert’s son had had a successful, but very difficult, surgery at the hospital a few years earlier.

The chairman of a McLean, Va., global real-estate and asset-management company, Mr. Robert asked hospital officials to devise a plan to make the hospital the best place in the world for children to have surgery.

It took three years, but the hospital devised a plan to bring researchers, doctors, and other experts together to focus on four areas: developing medicines that eliminate pain, using children’s own immune systems to fight illness and prevent the need for surgery where possible, perfecting bioengineering techniques that make surgical treatments more precise, and tailoring treatments to children’s genetic characteristics.

The price tag: at least $100-million.

Mr. Robert showed the hospital’s proposal to the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, whom he knows through his business. Soon he got other officials to review the proposal.

The gift came with almost no strings. Children’s officials said that $60-million will be used to pay for research and programs, $40-million will be used to improve facilities, and $25-million will be used to create an endowment that will support the new institute focused on innovation. The final $25-million can be used for projects the hospital’s board wants to undertake.