In addition to a gift from Texas Instruments, the new biomedical engineering building was generously supported by the Eugene McDermott Foundation, named for the engineering visionary and inventor who co-founded the Dallas-based global semiconductor design and manufacturing titan. The Foundation supported the new building’s construction with gifts to both UT Southwestern and UT Dallas.

For more than five decades, the Foundation has supported medical science, industry, education, the arts, and other important civic and community ventures in Dallas. A philanthropist interested in education, Mr. McDermott established the Biological Humanics Foundation, which in 1973 became the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development at UT Southwestern.

His generosity resulted in the creation of an endowment that supports the research and educational missions of the Center, which is directed by Helen Hobbs, M.D., who holds the Eugene McDermott Distinguished Chair for the Study of Human Growth and Development in addition to the Philip O’Bryan Montgomery, Jr., M.D. Distinguished Chair in Developmental Biology and the 1995 Dallas Heart Ball Chair in Cardiology Research.

The McDermott family’s tireless support of UT Southwestern includes gifts for the establishment of the Eugene McDermott Academic Administration Building and Plaza, the Eugene McDermott Center for Pain Management, and the Eugene McDermott Distinguished Chair in Molecular Genetics. It also features a notable collection of textiles and art assembled from all over the world that is permanently displayed in the halls and patient spaces of Zale Lipshy Pavilion – William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital.