“I think that the [Bauer Center] is an excellent conception,” said Mervyn J. Turner, senior vice president at Merck Research Laboratories. “By funding it, we’d be providing some seed money to trigger these new areas of fundamental research in the biological sciences.”

Turner, who negotiated the terms of the gift with the chair of the MCB Department, said that Merck will not have any licensing claims over the research produced using the gift.

“We thought it would encumber the relationship [with MCB] if we insisted on the [intellectual property] connection, especially as this is very early stage research, a long way from true medical applications,” he said.

The gift to MCB is the latest in a long line of Merck-funded initiatives at Harvard.

Merck is currently building a new laboratory adjacent to the Medical School in Boston, and funding several projects with FAS and the Medical School.

Murray himself is also a consultant for Merck.

Murray said that the traditional contractual structure of academic-industrial collaboration had a “chilling” effect on the openness of scientific research and represented a “poor return on investment for industry.”

The MCB’s chair, Baird Professor of Science Andrew P. McMahon, agreed. “This precedent by Merck demonstrates the mutual benefit of collaboration between private industry and academic research, and will encourage other corporate allies to consider this enlightened approach,” McMahon said in a press release.