A $25 million anonymous philanthropic gift to Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey will provide groundbreaking support for the Cancer Immunology and Metabolism Center of Excellence.
This donation will support faculty recruitment, shared resource development, and cancer research to help scientists better understand the human immune response to cancer and develop the foundation for new treatments, or make existing therapies more effective.
With the support of this gift, investigators will accelerate laboratory discoveries pertaining to these disciplines into clinical treatments through more effective and efficiently designed clinical trials. These trials would be offered in conjunction with other cancer centers and collaborators such as the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium, and made accessible to patients at RWJBarnabas Health facilities across the state.
In collaboration with its research consortium partner Princeton University, Rutgers Cancer Institute is considered an authority in the study of metabolism.
The gift also supports the recruitment of a co-director to lead the center along with Eileen White, deputy director of Rutgers Cancer Institute and chief scientific officer. Following a nationwide search, Christian Hinrichs, an expert in cancer immunology and immunotherapy, was recruited from NCI. He will begin his new role in January.
Additional new faculty to the center also will be supported through this gift.
The gift is part of an overall $50 million fundraising campaign, for which the aim is to secure an additional $25 million to fuel the work of the Cancer Immunology and Metabolism Center of Excellence.
