Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club, has donated more than £14 million to a new centre for nuclear medicine at Israel’s biggest hospital.

The Sheba Medical Center, in Ramat Gan, revealed plans to build a research centre dedicated to the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.

The new facility will house a particle accelerator which will be able to kill cancerous cells with ion beams, the Times of Israel  reports.

Mr Abramovich, who bought Chelsea in 2003, is believed to have already donated more than £40 million to the hospital, helping to fund a number of projects including paediatric heart and cancer research.

Yitshak Kreiss, the director general of the Sheba Medical Centre, said: “Thanks to this generous donation, we will be able to further our research in the field of nuclear imaging which will enhance our ability to make early diagnoses and offer a personalized medicine approach to our patients.”

Abramovich, 51, has a fortune of about £8 billion, Forbes magazine estimates, making him one of Britain’s wealthiest men.