Toshiaki”Tag”Taguchi, President and CEO of Toyota Motor North America, today joined Senator Jay Rockefeller in announcing a gift of $1 million from Toyota to the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute at West Virginia University. The funding will be used to establish the Toyota Chair in Advanced Brain Imaging. Toyota’s donation marks the single largest private gift to date for the Institute.

“I am particularly moved and honored by Toyota’s generosity and commitment to an endeavor that is of tremendous personal importance to me, my family and my State,”said Senator Rockefeller, chairman of the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute.”Toyota and I have worked together to create jobs in West Virginia and now we are partnering to save lives.”

The Toyota Chair will help attract significant additional funding for a related research program, and attract some of the world’s leading researchers in the area of brain imaging to the Rockefeller Institute in Morgantown, the senator noted.

“We are proud to join Senator Rockefeller, the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute and West Virginia University in the battle against debilitating neurological disorders,”Taguchi said.”We are confident that discoveries at the Institute will lead to a better quality of life for West Virginians and people around the world.”

The Toyota Chair in Advanced Brain Imaging will build upon an impressive foundation already established by West Virginia University. The University has invested more than $20 million in advanced imaging technology.

Brain imaging, or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), is a technique for monitoring brain activity. Advances in MRI will enable scientists to produce high quality, detailed computer-screen images of brain structures and to observe neurochemical changes that occur in the brain as it processes information or responds to various stimuli.

“Toyota’s gift to the Rockefeller Institute will be a tremendous boost for West Virginia University and for all of West Virginia,”said University President and Rockefeller Institute Board Member, David C. Hardesty.”Along with the significant investment already made by WVU in brain imaging technologies, the Toyota Chair will allow us to attract world-class researchers to our campus. We sincerely thank Mr. Taguchi and Senator Rockefeller for their leadership in this important area of human research.”

The Institute was launched by Senator Jay Rockefeller in December 1999 and named after his mother, Blanchette Rockefeller, who died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease in 1992. The Rockefeller Institute, headquartered on the campus of West Virginia University, is a nonprofit international medical research center focused on human memory and the development of new drugs and diagnostics to treat and diagnose neurological and cognitive disorders. It is the largest basic science research venture in West Virginia history, and the only major institute focusing on human memory in the world.

In addition to West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, the Rockefeller Institute also has a research facility on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Dr. Daniel Alkon, a renowned Alzheimer’s researcher formerly of the National Institutes of Health, leads a team of world-class researchers as Scientific Director of the Institute and Director of the Base Research Program in Memory and memory Disorders.

Following nearly 10 years of work by Senator Rockefeller to convince Toyota to consider West Virginia for a major manufacturing facility, the company in 1996 announced plans to build an engine plant in Buffalo, West Virginia. Today, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, West Virginia (TMMWV), has invested more than $900 million in the state, and now employs 800 people. By 2003, TMMWV will produce engines for the Corolla, Avalon, Matrix, Sienna, Lexus RX 300 , and GM Vibe, and transmissions for the Camry, Camry Solara, and Lexus RX 300 .In addition to its manufacturing operations in Buffalo, Toyota has 10 other manufacturing operations in North America. In 2000, Toyota produced 1.1 million vehicles and more than 900,000 engines in North America. Toyota is now the fourth largest auto manufacturer in North America.