J.K. Rowling donated £10 million to the
Edinburgh Multiple Sclerosis centre,
BBC News is reporting. The
Harry Potter author said that the "funds were to help attract top researchers to seek a cure for MS."
Rowling's mother, Anne, died from complications of the disease in 1990, soon after she began writing the first book of the
Harry Potter series, the
Philosopher's Stone.
The Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic, named in dedication to Rowling's late mother, "will aim to place patients at the heart of the research process."
For more information on MS, its symptoms, and causes, read
here.
UPDATE: J.K. Rowling had
more to say on why she chose to donate the money to the centre on behalf of her mother's memory.
Quote:
"I have just turned 45, the age at which my mother, Anne, died of complications related to her MS," Rowling said in a statement on Tuesday.
"I know that she would rather have had her name on this clinic than on any statue, flower garden or commemorative plaque, so this donation is on her behalf, too; and in gratitude for everything she gave me in her far-too-short life."
"I cannot think of anything more important, or of more lasting value, than to help the university attract world-class minds in the field on neuroregeneration, to build on its long and illustrious history of medical research and, ultimately, to seek a cure for a very Scottish disease," Rowling said.