Gift Is Food For Thought

Once home of the world’s largest manufacturer of sheets and towels, Kannapolis, N.C., suffered economic devastation when the town’s traditional textile industry bottomed out in the late 20th century. Hope for recovery seemed unlikely. Then David H. Murdock returned to town with a vision.

With the transformative goal of revitalizing Kannapolis and establishing the former mill town as a hotbed of nutrition-related scientific research, Murdock, owner of Dole Food Company, Inc., and former owner of Kannapolis-based Cannon Mills, launched the North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) in collaboration with universities across the state. The purpose of this high-tech campus is to support and enable breakthrough discoveries related to nutrition, health and wellness, and nutritionally advanced fruits and vegetables. As Murdock explains, “The Research Campus will be a thriving scientific community where the best minds will shape the way we understand nutrition and its relationship to disease.”

Tapping NC State’s Expertise

As a testament to NC State’s research expertise and elite reputation in the agricultural sciences, Murdock donated $2 million to fund three David H. Murdock Distinguished Professorships. Matched with $1 million from the North Carolina Distinguished Professors Endowment, Murdock’s gift has enabled NC State University to create three new College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) faculty positions, attracting leaders in the scientific pursuit of more nutritious fruits and vegetables. These positions will be housed in the NCRC at NC State’s recently opened Fruit and Vegetable Science Institute. Dr. Mary Ann Lila, an internationally known scientist recruited from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, will direct the Institute.

The 16 universities within the University of North Carolina system, as well as Duke University and others, are all integral partners to the campus. Much of the research that takes place in the facility will draw on NCRC’s broader work in determining the optimal nutritional characteristics for a range of fruits and vegetables. In turn, NC State’s CALS faculty will use this nutritional information to develop plants that best meet these nutritional requirements to enhance human health, and to determine how best to produce those plants commercially.

Not only will the NC Research Campus change the face of nutrition-related science, it will change the face of Kannapolis as well. Already, many private-sector companies have announced plans to open offices on the Research Campus, providing new jobs to re-trained textile workers and some of the country’s top scientists and engineers in the biotech, pharmaceutical, medical device and other industries.