In 2002, the Searle family and the Chicago Community Trust initiated the CBC to foster collaborations between scientists at Northwestern University, University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Chicago. As evidence of that, the CBC recently awarded $2m in support of the Chicago Tri-Institutional Center for Chemical Methods and Library Development which started with a $9.2 m NIH grant.  For its history, activities and research agenda, see the Chicago Biomedical Consortium’s website.