The Oscar Rennebohm Foundation announced Friday a donation of $15 million to aid in the costs of building the new University of Wisconsin Interdisciplinary Research Complex.

Funding for the $133.9 million project is now 90 percent complete, according to Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities, Planning and Management Alan Fish. He added the funding for the project consists almost entirely of private donations.

The IRC, which will be built on the west side of campus, will include laboratory facilities, offices, an imaging center and animal quarters.

The IRC will be dedicated mostly to cancer research, image science, cardiovascular research, neuroscience, stem-cell and regenerative medicine and molecular medicine. Fish added the IRC would focus mainly on researching diseases affecting the elderly — specifically cancer, heart disease, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Fish said in addition, the complex will update facilities and help to unify the currently spread-out research facilities located around the UW campus.

“[The IRC building is the] next step to continue to consolidate medical facilities,” Fish said.

Fish added the basic idea of the facility is to allow for medical research to take place and be immediately transferred into clinical trials at the nearby UW Hospital. This will quicken the process of bringing research discoveries to clinical execution.

Fish said UW was named the second university in the country for the number of federal grants it receives for research projects. He added that just in the last year there has been $6 million awarded in grants for UW researchers.

“[The IRC building needs] growth [to allow] for medical research to continue to grow,” Fish said.

First-year UW Medical School student Mark Been said he agreed it was important that the new complex bring the research facilities closer to the physicians and the clinics.

“The administration really places research as a high priority,” Been said.

Medical School Dean Philip Farrell said the building would help attract grant money for the school in addition to retaining and recruiting faculty and graduate students.

“These days we are really challenged when it comes to [recruitment],” Farrell said.

Farrell added that the IRC is a highly needed building to maintain the reputation of the UW Medical School. He said the school’s facilities were inadequate for education and research, putting the status of the institution in jeopardy.

“This building is about 15 years overdue,” Farrell said.

Been said the new building would also help the overall health system in Madison.

“[It] sounds like having this new building and these new facilities is really going to be a great addition to our school,” Been said. “I am very excited about this.”

Farrell said the Medical School is grateful for the partnership with the many donors, but none is more important than the Oscar Rennebohm Foundation. He added the $15 million donation is the largest the foundation has ever made.

The IRC project is the final phase of the Health Star initiative, a project that was initiated in 1997 by former Gov. Tommy Thompson to fund research projects in medicine.