Cancer researchers get $20 million boost from foundation
The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and UPMC Cancer Centers will receive a $20 million grant from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation and the Hillman Foundation to pay for promising cancer research, the largest single gift in the university's history, officials will announce today.
The joint gift, among the biggest ever awarded by the foundations, will be used to establish the Hillman Fellows Program for Innovative Cancer Research and to jump-start a $200 million capital campaign, now in its initial phase.
The five-year money-raising effort will allow the burgeoning cancer institute to recruit scientists, expand its research program and construct a building, said Dr. Ronald Herberman, director of the UPCI and its clinical counterpart, UPMC Cancer Centers.
UPMC Health System's $104 million, 300,000-square-foot Hillman Cancer Center opened in Shadyside less than three years ago, but already is filled with 450 research faculty and staff, Herberman said.
"We hope to bring in another 100 cancer researchers over the next few years," Herberman said. "To do that, we are envisioning the need for an additional research building."
A formal announcement about the new laboratories, still in the "discussion stages," should be made within the next couple of months, he said.
Billionaire industrialist Henry L. Hillman and his wife, Elsie, have long focused their philanthropy in the Pittsburgh community on accelerating the pace of cancer research.
As the name of the Hillman Cancer Center suggests, their foundations contributed $10 million toward the construction of the Centre Avenue building, which is the flagship of UPMC's expansive cancer network that now includes 43 oncology practices and regional centers in Western Pennsylvania.
The idea to launch the Hillman Fellows Program emerged from discussions between Henry Hillman and Herberman.
"I pointed out to him that one of the biggest challenges that we have is to find start-up funding for very promising junior researchers and for existing faculty that have new ideas without external grant funding," Herberman said.
The competition for highly coveted "R01" grants from the National Institutes of Health, the type most commonly awarded to individual investigators, has intensified in the past year. This makes it harder for young scientists to land their own money for the first time when their "university-funded honeymoon" period ends and for established biomedical researchers to test unproven ideas, Herberman said.
In 2004, about 4,219 -- or 20 percent -- of the 21,109 applications for new R01 grants were approved by the NIH, for a total of about $1.47 billion, according to the NIH Office of Extramural Research. The year before, the success rate for grant applications topped 24 percent, the office reported.
"I was sending grants to the NIH all the time, and they were going unfunded," said UPCI geneticist Anna Lokshin, who is searching for ways to identify the early signs of ovarian cancer. "It's a Catch-22." She said she needs preliminary data to get a grant, but needs a grant to be able to generate the preliminary data.
To help junior scientists such as Lokshin launch their independent careers in this tough financial climate, Hillman decided last year to contribute $2 million for a pilot fellowship program that supported 14 early-stage researchers.
Using the Hillman "seed money" she received -- akin to venture capital dollars -- Lokshin conducted experiments that identified 11 biological markers that could help oncologists diagnose ovarian cancer before it's too late for treatment.
Armed with this promising data, Lokshin then secured a $565,000, five-year grant from the NIH to continue the research and has been recommended for a promotion from assistant to associate professor, she said.
Similarly, UPCI researcher Lisa Butterfield used her Hillman pilot money to investigate a potential melanoma vaccine and hopes to parlay her results into a federal grant.
"You can't just go to the NIH with a good idea," said Butterfield, who was recruited to Pitt two years ago from the University of California at Los Angeles. "You need to have a lot of data to convince them that what you've got is important and well thought-out. That's why philanthropy is absolutely critical."
Based on the success of Lokshin, Butterfield and the other pilot fellows, the Hillman foundations decided to formalize the program with the additional $20 million gift announced today.
"This initiative will provide new opportunities for Pittsburgh researchers to translate laboratory findings into effective therapies for cancer patients, helping us to transform cancer from a deadly disease into one that can be managed and ultimately defeated," Hillman said in a statement.
Hillman is considered the city's wealthiest person. He is worth about $2.8 billion, according to last year's Forbes estimate, placing the industrialist at No. 68 on the magazine's roster of the nation's richest people.
Founded in 1946 by Hillman's steel mogul father, the Hillman Co. has wide interests in heavy industry such as coke, chemicals and transportation. More recently, the privately held company expanded into real estate and technology holdings.
Ron Wertz, president of the two Hillman foundations, said equal shares of the $20 million grant came from the Hillman Foundation, established in 1951 by Hillman's father, and from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, established by the younger Hillman in the 1960s.
This is the second large grant the foundations have awarded to a local health care provider in two months. In May, they awarded $10 million to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation to support transplant research and surgical training.
Additional Information:
$20 million grant
The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and UPMC Cancer Centers will receive a $20 million grant from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation and the Hillman Foundation to pay for promising research in five high-priority areas:
