Ludwig Cancer Research, founded by billionaire Daniel Ludwig, has announced a whopping donation of $540 million to six of its cancer research institutes.

Daniel Ludwig, a shipping magnate who established the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research in 1971, was committed to improving the understanding and control of cancer.

Ed McDermott, CEO of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, said the donation will help researchers build upon recent advances at a time when funding for medical research is declining.

"Never before has the cancer community had the knowledge and tools to probe so deeply into understanding cancer and discovering new ways to defeat it," said McDermott. "More must be done in terms of funding to ensure continued progress in an era of shrinking global resources for research."

The donation of $540 million will be divided equally among the six "Ludwig Centers" already established at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the University of Chicago.

MIT and Harvard University have called the generous donation transformative. MIT also said the money would help researchers develop their study on metastasis, which is the process wherein the cancer cells spread from a primary tumor to other parts of the body.

Each of the six Ludwig Centers will have a different research focus. Harvard University and MIT will work to address the problem of cancer's spread.

"Ludwig's generosity will support our efforts to answer two critical questions: how cancer spreads in the body and what we can do to stop it," said MIT President L. Rafael Reif.

The latest donation is the largest ever to Harvard Medical School. It is also the biggest gift MIT has received, which is specifically meant for cancer research. Billionaire David H. Koch donated MIT with $160 million to support its cancer efforts but most of the funding was used for the construction of an institute.