On Aug. 21, 2014, Mark McAndrew, a resident of McKinney, Texas, gave $2.4 million to the University of Missouri School of Medicine to create the Frances T. McAndrew Endowed Chair in Oncology. $400,000 of the gift will fund MU cancer researcher Fred Hawthorne’s innovative research on boron-neutron therapy as a treatment for cancer.

The gift was to honor McKinney’s late aunt, Frances, who was a patient at the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center, a part of University of Missouri Health Care.

McAndrew’s gift was inspired by his aunt’s battle with cancer as well as an inspiring essay written by Noah Wald-Dickler, an MU School of Medicine student who treated Frances during her stay at the hospital. In his essay, Wald-Dickler praised Frances and the rest of the McAndrew family for their strength and grace during such a difficult time.