The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center will receive $150 million fromSheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of UAE, the largest donation ever given to an institution in the Texas Medical Center. The gift, announced Tuesday by the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation, will fund M.D. Anderson’s Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy, both research and a building. The 600,000 square-foot facility will house the Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy and the Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston ranks as one of the world’s most respected centers focused on cancer patient care, research, education and prevention. MD Anderson is one of only 40 comprehensive cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute.

The grant also will fund three distinguished university chairs named after Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan for oncology, the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan for medical or scientific discipline dedicated to cancer research and the Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for scientific and medical knowledge in cancer research.

This is the third gift in the past four years from the UAE. It also gave $150 million to the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, one of the largest to a pediatric hospital, to establish the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation in 2009. In 2007, Sheikh Khalifa gave an undisclosed major sum to Johns Hopkins Medicine to help construct The Johns Hopkins Hospital new cardiovascular and critical care tower. Also named after Sheikh Khalifa’s father, it is one of two towers scheduled to open in early 2012, at a cost of $994 million.