The family of an executive who turned City of Hope from a country sanatorium for tuberculosis into a world renowned cancer center has donated $1 million for research in his name.

The gift in memory of Ben and Beverly Horowitz, the Duarte hospital’s late chief executive and his wife, will advance CART cell research to combat cancer.

The gift was announced this week by their son, Zach Horowitz, former chief executive of Universal Music Publishing Group, and their daughter Jody Horowitz Marsh, chair of City of Hope’s Beckman Research Institute.

Also contributing to a new Beverly and Ben Horowitz Fund for Immunotherapy Research were Barbara Horowitz, Zach’s wife; Gary Marsh, Jody’s husband; and cousin Stephen Meringoff and his Meringoff Family Foundation.

The fund will advance chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy research and clinical immunotherapy trials in breast, brain and prostate cancer. The therapy re-engineers a person’s immune cells to target tumors.

The Brooklyn-born Ben Horowitz, who led City of Hope from 1953 through 1985, turned it from a tiny hospital run for $600,000 a year into one of the mightiest health facilities in the nation with an annual budget upon his retirement of $100 million. He died in 2010 at 96.

Under his watch, City of Hope conducted the research for synthesizing human insulin, transforming the treatment for diabetes. It also pioneered research for primary drugs used to treat cancer.

Health business reporter Dana Bartholomew can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @_DanaBart.