The founder of women’s shoe company Nine West has given $50 million to the University of Pennsylvania, one of the largest donations in school history.

Jerome Fisher, a 1953 Penn alumnus, and his wife Anne donated the funds to help build a biomedical research facility on the university’s campus in West Philadelphia. Fisher is the founder and chairman emeritus of the Nine West Group Inc., which makes women’s shoes and accessories.

Slated to open in 2010, the Anne and Jerome Fisher Translational Research Center will emphasize an accelerated pace for converting laboratory discoveries into medical therapies.

Each floor will be the size of a football field, dramatically increasing Penn’s research space, university officials said. It will house about 100 principal researchers and 900 additional staff.

The donation also includes a professorship in hematology and oncology named in honor of the Fishers’ daughter, Jodi Fisher.

It is one of the largest gifts in the history of the Ivy League school and the second-largest to Penn’s medical system.

“Anne and I love Penn, and we have long felt that investing in this world-class university is investing in the future of humankind itself,” Jerome Fisher said.

The couple’s previous gifts to Penn total more than $14 million.