Harvard University has received the largest donation in its history from a foundation run by two wealthy Hong Kong brothers.

The Morningside Foundation donated $350 million to the Harvard School of Public Health, the university announced on Monday.

The donation, which is unrestricted, will support efforts that include increased financial aid for students; loan forgiveness for graduates who work in underserved areas; new classrooms; and seed money for pathbreaking research too novel to win support from other funders.

The Morningside Foundation was established in 1996 by Drs Ronnie and Gerald Chan to support higher education in North America and Asia. Their father, T.H. Chan, founded Hang Lung Group Ltd, one of Hong Kong's largest real estate companies.

After Chan's death in 1986, his sons started the Morningside Group, which makes private equity and venture capital investments in biotech and other science- and technology-based companies, especially in China and the United States. The brothers rank 17th on Forbes' 2014 list of Hong Kong's richest people, with a combined net worth of $2.95 billion.

Julio Frenk, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, said the Morningside gift will support research and training in four areas: pandemics that include malaria, Ebola, obesity and cancer; environmental health risks, including pollution, guns, and tobacco; poverty and humanitarian crises, including war and natural disasters; and failing health systems.

The school will be renamed the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The previous record gift to Harvard, announced earlier this year, was $150 million from hedge fund manager and alumnus Kenneth Griffin, most of it for financial aid. The largest cumulative donation to any US university, unadjusted for inflation, is $1.1 billion over many years from former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP, to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, including its School of Public Health.

Reuters