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Office of the President

U of L Update: March 2004

The Brown Cancer Center: Advancing Our Health Care and Quality of Life

Dear Colleagues:

Among the highlights of my service to the commonwealth was the passage of 1997's House Bill 1—groundbreaking legislation that put a premium on excellence in Kentucky's postsecondary education and university-based research. The University of Louisville responded with the Challenge for Excellence, an aggressive roadmap to national research preeminence. Even in tight economic times it is critical that we stay the course.

A key component for meeting the university's research goals is the successful achievement of National Cancer Institute designation as a Comprehensive Cancer Center for the James Graham Brown Cancer Center. NCI designation means more federal research dollars for U of L. Every 1 million in federal research funds that we attract results in new jobs and $1.22 million in new revenue for other local businesses and organizations.

More importantly, the cancer center is an asset to this region, standing ready to provide state-of-the-art care and groundbreaking new treatments to patients from Kentucky and beyond. Thank you for your continued support of U of L and the James Graham Brown Cancer Center.

Sincerely,

James R. Ramsey
President

Inside the Report

Background

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U of L's James Graham Brown Cancer Center is charting a course of unprecedented achievement under the leadership of Dr. Don Miller.
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The idea began more than 25 years ago with a handful of concerned community leaders and physicians from the University of Louisville.

The area needed a world-class center for cancer care and research that would ultimately benefit the health of patients worldwide and enhance the economic vitality of the local community.

The facility that grew from this vision, the James Graham Brown Cancer Center at the University of Louisville, is living up to the dream.

Today the Brown Cancer Center is home to scores of the finest cancer researchers and clinical scientists in the United States . Its research programs have experienced a level of unmatched productivity during the past five years, growing from less than $300,000 per year in annual research support to more than $35 million today.

This research has led to the creation of several promising new cancer treatments such as drugs that more specifically target cancer cells with fewer side effects for patients—promising new treatments that are available at just a few of the leading cancer centers in the nation. Cancer patients travel from up to 1,000 miles away to receive treatment at the Brown Cancer Center ’s multidisciplinary clinics.

Its growth and successes have placed the Brown Cancer Center on the brink of true scientific greatness.

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A Growing National Resource

In fall 2002, the James Graham Brown Cancer Center received what has been called the most important grant in its history—a “P20” planning grant awarded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). While the grant is not a large cash award, the message it sends is priceless. The NCI has reviewed the center ’s five-year plan to achieve NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center status—its highest designation—and endorsed the effort.

The plan includes continued dramatic growth of the six research programs at the center—growth that will bring the critical mass of clinicians, researchers and technology needed to be counted among the most elite cancer programs in the country.

The NCI ’s Comprehensive Cancer Centers function as the vanguard of the war on cancer. They combine research, clinical care, education and outreach to generate new knowledge, develop new approaches and deliver benefits to the public. Comprehensive Cancer Centers are normally the first approved to offer new cancer therapies. They also enjoy ongoing federal research funding and attract the best and brightest cancer scientists.

Institutions such as M.D. Anderson, Sloan-Kettering, Johns Hopkins and UCLA are currently among the 38 such centers. The James Graham Brown Cancer Center is on track to be a part of that prestigious group—forever changing what academics, community leaders and legislators refer to as U of L ’s “peer institutions.”

The key to the Brown Cancer Center ’s success is an unwavering focus on “translational research” —research in which all efforts in the laboratory are focused on discoveries and developments that lead to dramatic improvements in patient care in the short term. No other facility in the region can match the Brown Cancer Center in this regard.

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A Facility for the Future

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To support its rapidly growing research in cancer and related fields, the University of Louisville is planning its next proposed research facility, a $98 million, 259,750-square-foot space that will directly support the university’s ambitious research goals and high standards.

Benefits of the proposed facility include:

The less tangible but equally critical benefits would enhance the culture and climate of what the National Institutes of Health has called one of the country’s fastest growing medical research programs. Such a facility will serve as a campus research centerpiece connecting and integrating the local research community while also fostering higher levels of interdisciplinary and interprofessional research.

The NIH roadmap specifically names cross-disciplinary research as a major focus for new funding in the coming years. Universities that are successful in that environment will have appropriate space and programs to encourage teams of bright, productive scientists to simultaneously approach medicine’s mysteries from a variety of coordinated angles. Therefore, jointly housing groups of researchers focused on molecular targets for cancer therapies, cardiac metabolism, proteomics and bioinformatics could be the recipe for scientific and therapeutic breakthrough.

Recognizing the importance of this facility, the state’s Council on Postsecondary Education recommended funding the $98 million needed for its construction. In fact, the council named the facility one of its two highest-priority construction projects. HB395 (the budget bill) currently proposes $19 million for the building from the state, $19 million from agency bonds and $12 million from private or other sources.

This level of funding would allow the construction of a 134,700-square-foot facility to be located on the Health Sciences Campus, a building about half the size of the one originally proposed. While the smaller facility would certainly ease the immediate need for laboratory and support space for the fast-growing cancer research program, it would lack the capacity to house the cross-disciplinary teams favored by federal research funding agencies.

In addition, the budget bill does not include $4 million requested by the state’s Office of the New Economy to continue a joint U of L/University of Kentucky cancer therapeutics initiative that takes advantage of the strengths at each of the commonwealth’s research universities to find new therapies for lung cancer, leukemia and other cancers.

The university, its employees, the Office of the New Economy, the community and many donors have invested in a 25-year-old vision that Louisville could become home to an internationally recognized center for cancer research and care. Today, that vision for the James Graham Brown Center is close to realization.

When we do achieve that goal, we all will have joined in advancing the health care, quality of life and economic growth for everyone in the commonwealth.

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Why Kentucky?

Today, there are no Comprehensive Cancer Centers in Kentucky although the state leads the nation in new lung cancer cases and deaths each year. In fact, Kentucky is among the top five states for deaths resulting from almost every cancer type.

And no wonder. Kentuckians are among the most likely in the United States to engage in behaviors that can lead to cancer, such as teenage smoking, smoking during pregnancy, obesity, sedentary lifestyles and poor access to appropriate care.

Kentucky cancer patients needing the kind of treatments available only at Comprehensive Cancer Centers now must travel to either Columbus, Ohio, or Nashville, Tenn. The professionals at the Brown Cancer Center are taking steps to make these patients’ sacrifice a thing of the past.

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Cancer Research—An Economic Driver

The Brown Cancer Center research programs are structured to be “translational” in nature; that is, each program investigates therapies and therapy targets that have the potential to help patients in the near future. Already the center has produced two spin-off companies and introduced two new products to market.

Last year, Kentucky’s Office for the New Economy recognized the center’s enormous potential and invested $2 million of programmatic support for its translational research, which moves ideas for new therapies from the lab to the clinic. Specifically, the funding is being used to:

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A Campaign to 'Find Answers to Cancer'

This year the university will launch a $41.5 million capital campaign to raise funds to expand the research and clinical programs at the cancer center to support its quest for NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center designation.

More than 85 percent of the money will be used to recruit and support the top minds in cancer research as the university approaches the “critical mass” of intellectual capital needed to be counted among the finest cancer research and care programs in the world. The rest of the funding will be used to purchase technology and equipment for each of the cancer center ’s six research programs.

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An Investment for the Commonwealth's Future

The economic ripple effect of Comprehensive Cancer Center designation will be felt throughout the region. Studies have shown that for every federal research dollar invested at the university level, $1.22 is returned to the community and state in revenue. In addition, newly designated NCI centers generally experience an immediate 20 percent increase in out-of-area patient flow.

Investment in the James Graham Brown Cancer Center also pays dividends much more valuable than those shown on a balance sheet. The increased cancer research, clinical care and prevention productivity improves the lives of patients at the Brown Cancer Center and at partner institutions throughout the region, like those in Madisonville and Taylor County.

The influx of new scientists, physicians and employees strengthens the intellectual and cultural climate that Louisvillians already enjoy. And, most importantly, the dismal picture of Kentucky ’s health will improve dramatically.

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James Graham Brown Cancer Center at a Glance

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