A foundation set up by Hang Lung Group chief Ronnie Chan Chichung and his family has made the biggest donation in Harvard University's 378-year history, handing over US$350 million to its school of public health. The school will be renamed the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health after the late tycoon Chan Tseng-hsi, founder of Hang Lung. It becomes only the second Harvard faculty to carry the name of a person, after the John F. Kennedy School of Government The donation is from the Morningside Foundation - set up by Chan's sons Ronnie Chan and Gerald Chan Lok-chung, who earned his master's and doctorate degrees at the school of public health. Harvard president Professor Drew Faust said: "This extraordinary gift from the Chan family will enable Harvard's school of public health to tackle intractable health problems and to translate rigorous research into action and policy worldwide." The donation will go towards fighting four global health threats: pandemics old and new, from malaria and Ebola to obesity and cancer; tackling harmful physical and social environments - covering everything from pollution to gun violence; poverty and humanitarian crises; and failing health systems worldwide, that leave many people without access to health care. "On behalf of my mother and my brothers, I want to express how pleased we are that the legacy of our late father can be honoured by this gift," said Gerald Chan. "He was a generous man who was a staunch supporter of education. He also wanted to support scientific research to alleviate human suffering." Chan Tseng-hsi founded Hang Lung in 1960 and built it into one of the city's biggest developers before his death in 1986. The brothers are ranked Hong Kong's 17th-richest people by Forbes , which put their net worth at almost US$3 billion. The donation is more than double the previous record gift of US$150 million, donated by an American billionaire in February. Hong Kong tycoons have long been supporters of health and education. The biggest donation locally was Li Ka-shing's 2005 gift to the University of Hong Kong of HK$1 billion. In 2008, Morningside gave about HK$100 million to Chinese University towards construction of the new Morningside College. HKU and Chinese University have each raised more than HK$1billion in donations in recent years, helping them access the maximum grant of HK$600 million each under a government matching grant scheme. Donations by Hong Kong tycoons to overseas universties 1995 Gordon Wu Ying-sheung of Hopewell Holdings - US$100 million to Princeton University in New Jersey 1999 Lui Che-woo of K Wah Group - US$500,000 to the Stanford University Medical Centre 2005 Li Ka Shing Foundation - US$40 million to the University of California, Berkeley 2010 Dickson Poon of Dickson Concepts - £10 million (HK$126.5 million) for construction of the University of Oxford China Centre Building 2012 Dickson Poon - £20 million to Law School of King's College London 2014 Li Ka Shing Foundation - US$10 million to University of California, Berkeley and UC San Francisco