The Buck Institute for Research on Aging is an independent biomedical research institute that researches aging and age-related disease. The mission of the Buck Institute is to extend the healthy years of life. The Buck Institute is one of nine centers for aging research of the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research. The institute, a nonprofit organization located in Novato, California, began its research program in 1999, making it the world's first institute founded primarily to study intervention into the aging process. It is named for Marin County philanthropists Leonard and Beryl Hamilton Buck, whose estate funded the endowment that helped establish the institute, and the Buck Trust currently contributes approximately $6 million annually to support the institute's work. The campus of the Buck Institute was designed by architect I. M. Pei. In May 2007, the institute established a cooperative agreement with the University of California's Davis and Merced campuses to coordinate stem-cell research. History The Buck Foundation Trust was created by Beryl Hamilton Buck after the death in 1953 of her husband, pathologist Leonard W. Buck. Leonard's father, Frank Buck, was one of the founders of Belridge Oil. When Beryl Buck died in 1975, the bulk of the estate became part of the San Francisco Foundation, about $7.6 million dedicated to "charitable purposes in Marin County" including, "extending help to the problems of aging." The Belridge Oil stock in the trust was bought in 1979 by Shell Oil for $253 million, increasing the trust's value substantially. Attempts by the San Francisco Foundation to use the cy pres doctrine to spend outside of Marin County resulted in litigation which the SF Foundation lost. As part of a 1986 court settlement, the Marin Community Foundation was established to administer the trust, valued in 2013 at approximately $1 billion. The settlement required that 80% of the trust's annual earnings be distributed to causes specific to Marin County. The remaining 20% is to be distributed among three Marin County organizations: The Buck Institute for Research on Aging The Buck Institute for Education Alcohol Justice, formerly named The Marin Institute, which deals with alcohol-related problems. In 2016, the institute began talks with the Gladstone Institutes, a San Francisco-based foundation, regarding a possible research alliance or merger. That discussion ended in October 2016. In December 2022, the institute hosted The Longevity Summit, a two-day conference on ageing, the emerging new biotech companies in the field, and