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The Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ celebrated two major fundraising and construction milestones on Wednesday for the Bill & Melinda Gates Center for Computer Science & Engineering.

The Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Board of Regents voted in October to name the building for the Gateses, after Microsoft and a group of longtime friends and colleagues joined together to contribute more than $30 million in the couple’s honor. On Wednesday, the university announced an additional $15 million grant from Bill and Melinda Gates that completes fundraising for the $110 million building. Also on Wednesday, the university hosted a “topping out” ceremony, which celebrated the placement of the final steel beam at the top of the structure. The additional investment will allow the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ to double its annual computer science and engineering degree production, offer an unparalleled education to more of Washington’s students and grow its high impact research programs. Read more about the Bill & Melinda Gates Center for Compute Science & Engineering from .

The Brotman Baty Institute for Personalized Medicine has launched in Seattle with a goal of pursuing one of the most sought-after and elusive goals in science: Treatments tailored to individual patients. Named for Costco co-founder Jeff Brotman and his lifelong friend, Dan Baty, whose families made a combined $50 million gift to create the BBI, the institute will be a collaboration between Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Medicine, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Seattle Children’s. Researchers with the institute will work to discover personalized treatments based on patients’ individual genetic and molecular profiles. Dr. Jay Shendure, professor of genome sciences at the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ School of Medicine, will direct the BBI Institute. Read more from .

The University of Washington has launched a new institute aimed at accelerating research at the nanoscale: the , or NanoES. The institute will pursue impactful advancements in a variety of disciplines — including energy, materials science, computation and medicine. Yet these advancements will be at a technological scale a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair. Read more from .

The Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ welcomed the most diverse class of students and the largest number of Washington residents in Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ history, according to the finalized Fall 2017 census of enrolled students.

The new class across all three campuses, including freshman and transfer students, totals 11,376. Of those, 74.1 percent (8,431 students) are Washington residents.

Read more from .

The Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ invites our community to join us for our annual week of connecting, sharing stories and showing appreciation for the service of all our Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ veterans, past and present. See the full events calendar .