An alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his wife have pledged $100-million to create an institute for scientists and engineers from MIT, Harvard University, and Massachusetts General Hospital to work on an AIDS vaccine, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

The pledge, $10-million a year for 10 years, will finance the Phillip T. and Susan M. Ragon Institute, which will be housed at the hospital.

Mr. Ragon, a 1971 graduate of MIT, is the founder of a software company, the InterSystems Corporation, according to an MIT news release.

The institute will encourage interdisciplinary research in hopes that a combination of the physical sciences and engineering, and the collaboration of researchers from the different institutions, can help lead to the discovery of an AIDS vaccine. —Kathryn Masterson