The California Institute of Technology has received an $18 million donation from philanthropist Eli Broad to create a biological sciences center for 10 new Caltech research groups.

The donation will fund the 100,000-square-foot Broad Center for the Biological Sciences, intended as a technological and scientific incubator for Southern California's biotechnology industry. The new center will be built in the northwest section of the campus.

Broad is chairman, president and chief executive officer of SunAmerica Corp., a financial services holding company.

Broad's donation has been included in Caltech's new Biological Sciences Initiative, a $100 million capital campaign to fund new faculty and resources for the Pasadena university. A total of $56 million has been raised so far, university officials report.

The initiative will fund 12 new professorships, add new academic programs, fund graduate fellowships and postdoctoral positions, and create new M.D./Ph.D programs.