One in Three: $50 Million Fund Would Help Fight Cancer
One of the biggest, most promising ideas to emerge from the General Assembly's 2007 session is a proposal for a new fund to support cancer research at UNC. Here is a summary:
University Cancer Research Fund
The Senate Budget:
The budget would establish a University Cancer Research Fund to be allocated by the president of the UNC system for cancer research. An allocation of $16 million in 2007 would increase to $32 million in 2008 and $50 million in recurring funds by 2009.
Mission:
One in three North Carolinians will contract cancer during their lives. With 41,000 new cases and 17,000 deaths in North Carolina and more than 560,000 deaths nationally each year, cancer poses a massive economic, social, and personal burden for our state and the families affected. Over the next 30 years, the number of cancer patients will double. UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, N.C. Cancer Hospital and the AHEC network have a simple but enormous mission: To reduce suffering and death from cancer in North Carolina and the world.
Why is the Research Fund Needed?
Just as funds for the N.C. Cancer Hospital are building a premier new facility in North Carolina, this fund would transform research and efforts to prevent, detect early, and treat cancers across the state and beyond. UNC Lineberger, the only public comprehensive cancer center in the state, ranks among the top 15 institutions in National Cancer Institute funding. Faculty are world leaders in their disciplines and provide a base on which to build the country’s best state cancer center. Cancer visits to UNC have doubled in the last nine years. Last year, more than 15,000 cancer patients were seen from all 100 North Carolina counties. With this fund, we will work with local partners to reach out even more.
Limited Resources:
Our aspiration is hampered by resources that do not match top centers. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Harvard) in Boston and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston each have large endowments and raise over $100 million privately each year. In addition, California, Massachusetts and Texas are proposing state biomedical research programs of $3 billion, $1 billion and $3 billion, respectively.
Attracting – and Keeping – the Best:
The most valuable component of any world-class biomedical research effort is faculty recruitment, accomplished through nationwide searches that identify the best talent in strategic areas. Faculty, in turn, create research teams, attract grants and educate the next generation of scientists. To attract and retain the best faculty, we need competitive salaries, excellent facilities, first-rate equipment, post-doctoral fellows, research nurses and technical personnel. UNC has attracted some of the nation’s best young faculty – so much so that other institutions are now raiding our talent. These funds would help keep the best in North Carolina.
Impact on the State:
One-third of our patients die from this disease, and even our life-saving treatments can have toxic effects. Research can change that by targeting specific vulnerabilities in cancer cells or, better still, by detecting cancer in the earliest stages or even preventing it. Our hospital already sees patients from all 100 counties. This proposal would allow UNC to become a national and international leader in cancer research, while at the same time serving more North Carolinians and expanding the state’s economy.
Support from UNC General Administration:
UNC President Erskine Bowles says the Cancer Research Fund is a priority for the University. “Given its potential to directly benefit the citizens of the state, we enthusiastically support this proposal,” Bowles wrote in a June 11 letter to budget conferees from the House and Senate.
Building the Nation’s Best Public Cancer Center: Research in Three Areas
• Statewide Outreach, Assessment and Prevention
Our faculty will study the occurrence, environmental and genetic causes, treatment and outcomes in North Carolina cancer patients. We will develop new strategies for prevention. Our faculty already have conducted important studies on breast cancer among African-American women and established programs to improve mammography use and diet in minority communities. We will attempt to understand and correct poor cancer outcomes in minorities and North Carolinians of low socio-economic status. We also will seek outside funds to use North Carolina as a laboratory for the largest lung-cancer study ever done. With state and local partners, we will distribute the best, most cost-effective practices for prevention and early detection – for example, diet, mammography, colon cancer screening and teen smoking prevention. This program will be a model for other states.
• Groundbreaking Basic and Translational Research
Our scientists and physicians will study ways to prevent, detect early, and treat cancer. Fundamental research will lead to a molecular and genetic understanding of how cancer occurs and new strategies in chemical, biological, imaging, nanotechnology and bioengineering sciences. We expect to discover new therapeutic and imaging agents. We will launch a program that develops drugs from discovery through human trials. This offers broad potential for business start-ups and job creation.
• Multidisciplinary Clinical Care and Research Teams
These funds would help us recruit more nationally recognized clinicians and research leaders to expand our team approach to care. These professionals will test and make available new therapies for patients at the N.C. Cancer Hospital – including cancer survivors – and extend these therapies to sister institutions and health systems. The Cancer Hospital will be a hub for novel therapy, but there are many more cancer patients than can be seen in our clinics. Our research findings will be disseminated throughout the state through clinical care facilities and practices.
