The University of Washington is hoping to snag a leading public-health expert from Harvard University to head a new institute on global health at its Seattle campus — assuming that it can also land the $100-million or so it and the expert are seeking from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. According to a proposal from the deans of the university’s schools of medicine and public health, the new center would be called the Health Metrics Institute.

The deans have been talking to Harvard’s Christopher J.L. Murray, a professor of population policy and director of the Harvard Initiative on Global Health, about heading the new institute, which, according to today’s Seattle Times, would “specialize in measuring and evaluating the health of people in the world’s poorest countries.” The newspaper said the foundation’s gift could amount to as much as $115-million.

A similar institute was to have been created a year ago at Harvard, with Mr. Murray in charge, but the idea was abandoned when Lawrence J. Ellison, founder of the Oracle Corporation, reneged on a $115-million donation that he promised to Harvard for the institute in 2005.