Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) Signs on Prestigious International University to Coalition

More news on DPI (via Crains):

The budding Discovery Partners Institute in the South Loop got an important push today as officials from its parent University of Illinois announced an "international partnership" with the famed Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a major research hub whose founders included Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.

But though the alliance with a school noted for producing Nobel laureates will provide some glitz, officials still are vague on when they will produce the promised hundreds of millions and perhaps billions of dollars in private capital needed to match up to $500 million in available state capital.

While this is positive news, the article plainly states that they still needs private investment:

So far, the institute has lined up $300 million in "non-state" funding, Killeen said. Most of that is from universities and "not enough yet" from private companies interested in tapping the U of I’s research and development abilities, but, "We have a lot more coming." Killeen did not say when or how much.

The U of I chief did say that a formal written agreement with Related, which has agreed to donate property for DPI if U of I and partners build it, is "in a third draft" and likely to be competed "in month or so." Signing an agreement would be taken by some as a definite sign of progress.

Stay tuned...