UC Davis Cancer Center seeks community support to expand patient-care space and endow research
UC Davis Cancer Center has announced a $35-million Capital and Endowment Initiative, the first in its history, to expand patient-care facilities and fund the university's first chairs in cancer research.
"Sooner or later, cancer affects almost all of us — and when it does, you want a winning team on your side," said Jim Otto, chair of the initiative's steering committee. Otto, a longtime center for the Oakland Raiders, was treated for prostate cancer at UC Davis in 2002.
"The money we are raising will allow UC Davis Cancer Center to expand so that it can take care of the growing numbers of patients who come here each year," Otto said. "It will also create endowments that will give UC Davis Cancer Center the clout it needs to sign and keep the best scientists in cancer research, so that the next advances happen right here."
Halfway to the goal line
The launch of the initiative's public phase comes five years after UC Davis Cancer Center began gathering a nucleus of support from members of the steering committee and other generous contributors. So far, more than $16 million has been pledged, including $1.3 million from steering committee members.
The many commitments to the initiative include:
UC Davis Cancer Center diagnosed more than 2,000 new cases of cancer and cared for more than 9,000 children and adults with cancer last year. Patients come to the region's only National Cancer Institute-designated center from throughout the Central Valley, inland Northern California, southern Oregon and western Nevada.
In addition, UC Davis Cancer Center unites 180 scientists at work on more than 300 projects aimed at finding new treatments, diagnostic methods and prevention strategies for adult and pediatric cancers. Members of the UC Davis Cancer Research Program come from more than a dozen schools, departments and divisions on three campuses — the UC Davis main campus in Davis, the UC Davis Medical Center campus in Sacramento and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore.
"This Capital and Endowment Initiative takes place at a critical time, when developments both at UC Davis Cancer Center and in the broader scientific community have set the stage for rapid progress against cancer," said Ralph deVere White, director of the Cancer Center and assistant dean for cancer programs at UC Davis. "The outlook has never been more promising."
