Los Angeles Lakers president and part owner Jeanie Buss has donated $1.5 million for Surgical Oncology Research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, it was announced Thursday.

The donation will serve to establish the Dr. Jerry H. Buss Surgical Oncology Fellowship — a tribute to her late father and close friend and family physician, Dr. Allan W. Silberman.

“Jeanie was inspired to endow the fellowship by her parents’ courageous battles with cancer,” a statement said. “Both were patients of Silberman. Her mother, JoAnn, is a cancer survivor and remains under Silberman’s care.”

Cedars-Sinai officials expressed gratitude for the gift, which, according to the statement, “will fuel the medical center’s academic mission.”

“We are enormously grateful that Jeanie Buss has chosen to honor her father’s memory with a gift that advances our educational mission in such a meaningful fashion,” said Dr. Shlomo Melmed, Cedars-Sinai senior vice president for academic affairs.

“By training new young surgeons every year, the Buss Fellowship will dramatically accelerate the development and application of new ideas and innovations in the treatment of cancer.”

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