Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss-born engineer and businessman, has pledged $125-million to expand Harvard University’s Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

University officials said Mr. Wyss’s pledge would be paid out over the next five years. The money will endow seven professorships at the institute and support its operations.

Researchers at the institute will include biologists, chemists, engineers, mathematicians, physicians, and scientists from other disciplines. All will work collaboratively to attempt to uncover the engineering principles that govern life forms and use that knowledge to develop technologies they hope will solve looming health-care and environmental problems.

Mr. Wyss earned an M.B.A. at the university’s business school in 1965 and is the chairman of Synthes, an international medical-device company whose North American headquarters are in West Chester, Pa. He previously gave $25-million to the business school in 2004 for its Ph.D. program.

Mr. Wyss declined through a Harvard spokeswoman to be interviewed about his new pledge, but said in a news release that he was “humbled” by the opportunity he has had to contribute to work that may change the future of medicine and science.

“Little did I dream when I began my career in engineering,” he said, “that we would reach a point where engineers and biologists would be using nature’s templates to create solutions to our medical and environmental challenges.” —Maria Di Mento