Deborah Nash Willingham, IE 78, has made a seven-figure commitment to support health and cancer research in the School of Biology at Georgia Tech.

A retired senior vice president with Microsoft Corp., Willinghamis a longtime resident of Seattle and a passionate supporter of health care, the arts and social services for the needy. She said her first preference is to support ovarian cancer research, which is one of the deadliest forms of the disease.

John Mc-Donald, chair of the biology school, is co-director of the Ovarian Cancer Institute with Benedict B. Benigno, an Atlanta gynecologic oncologist with the Southeastern Gynecologic Oncology Group.

"I have been so impressed with the people working in the Ovarian Cancer Institute," Willingham said. "Their optimism in potentially finding a definitive blood test for ovarian cancer is contagious.

"The death rate in ovarian cancer is higher than many other cancers because it is so often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. The work they are doing could save many lives and I want to help ensure they have the equipment, facilities and staff to work as fast as possible toward that goal."

Ovarian cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to diagnose. About 75 percent of ovarian cancers are detected at stages III and IV, when it has spread.

"The important issue for me is continuing to make progress with gene mapping and similar efforts so that research can be even more individually focused, not just on large classes like gender and race, but on sets of individuals with certain genes that can mark the mas needing preventative treatments," said Willlingham, a member of the Georgia Tech Foundation board of trustees and a former chair of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board.

She also is a member of a family with a Tech tradition that includes her father, the late Harold R. Nash Sr., EE 52; brothers H. Ronald Nash Jr., IE 70, and Michael R. Nash, IE 74, and his wife, Ellen Evatt Nash, Text 73; a niece, Jennifer E. Nash, Arch 02; nephew, David R. Nash, a 2003 graduate with degrees in mechanical engineering as well as international affairs and modern languages; and brother-in-law Arthur C. Ivey, CE 81, married to her sister, Mary.

"When you have someone with the distinguished corporate and philanthropic background of Deborah Willingham make such a substantial investment in a research program, you know the work you're doing has real value," McDonald said. "The real beneficiaries are the countless women whose lives will be saved as a result."