Harold E. Varmus, former director of the National Institute of Health, said that there were other similar efforts, including Stanford’s “Bio-X” interdisciplinary science center, but that the Broad collaboration was a powerful one.

“It is among the few [centers] to respond to the emerging need for multi-disciplinary approaches to biomedical sciences,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Summers said that the strength of the Broad Institute will be its parent institutions.

“I am convinced that there is no other city in the world with as many extraordinary scientists at every level...prepared to work on biomedical problems,” Summers said.

The Broad Institute will be located near Whitehead and MIT in Cambridge’s Kendall Square neighborhood, an area seeded with biotechnology firms. The institute will have 15 associated faculty members when it is launched later this year, and Lander will be appointed to the HMS faculty at that time.

Lander and the institute faculty will develop its research priorities, but will ultimately report to an executive committee consisting of Summers, MIT President Charles M. Vest and Eli Broad, who is currently chair of financial services giant AIG SunAmerica.

Having a donor on the top oversight committee is unusual for an academic institution, but more acceptable in the world of private foundations such as Whitehead, Harvard officials said.

From the Top Down

Summers has said that strengthening life science research at the University is one of his top priorities, and the institute embodies a number of goals he has promoted to that end.

Collaboration across both disciplines and schools has been a common theme in Summers’ speeches, as has been making the Boston area a mecca for biomedical research.

He has argued for the need for more “big science”—large-scale, well-funded ventures such as what the Broad Institute will become.

And the Broad Institute will have a focus on computational biology—a Summers favorite.

According to those involved in planning for further life science initiatives, the institute is a major commitment for Harvard but is only part of the overall effort. It will be a small part of a planned University-wide life science campaign, said HMS Executive Dean Eric P. Buehrens.

Summers said his office expects to announce progress on other initiatives this year.

But some professors from FAS said that the institute raises worries about these future efforts. Several criticized what they saw as a lack of consultation about Lander’s proposal for the Broad Institute.