Cheryl Pilate
This year, KU named its number-one goal: to become a nationally recognized cancer center by 2016. Private funding for research, professorships and more will play a key role in meeting that goal.
When Cheryl Pilate visited the KU Breast Cancer Prevention Center at age 38, she did not yet know that breast cancer would take the life of her mother.
For more than a decade, as her risk factors accumulated, Pilate turned to the center to learn about prevention and to participate in research trials and screenings. Ultimately, clear information from center director Dr. Carol Fabian helped her weigh prevention choices. Pilate chose a preventive double mastectomy and immediate reconstruction surgery, which all but eliminated her high risk for the disease.
“I carried this worry for 23 years and now it’s gone,” said Pilate, a Kansas City, Mo., attorney. “Thanks to Dr. Fabian and the center, I project into the future and see positively. I no longer have this fear.”
KU hopes to eliminate the fear, suffering and death from cancer that people worldwide such as Pilate face. In fact, KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway has made that a goal at KU, naming cancer KU’s number-one priority.
Essential to KU’s cancer efforts is the goal to become a National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center, which will recognize KU for fostering the best research, prevention and treatment programs in the region. The NCI designation would funnel more financial support from the National Institutes of Health to KU, bring special clinical drug trials to the region and provide new training opportunities for KU medical students and oncologists.
To help KU reach this goal, KU Endowment will raise funds for additional cancer-related professorships, research and technology support. KU plans to raise $71.8 million for cancer over the next three years through a combination of private philanthropy and public support.
Already, KU Endowment donors have helped the university’s cancer goals in several ways, including providing financial support for distinguished professorships in cancer held by Dr. Fabian and by Dr. Roy Jensen, director of the Kansas Masonic Cancer Research Institute at KU.
Professorships are key to attracting and retaining the best basic and clinical researchers for KU. That translates into more cancer research dollars and better research, education and patient care –
the hallmark of Pilate’s experience.
“Dr. Fabian and KU gave me an early warning system for breast cancer,” Pilate said. “I felt like I had the best care in the whole world.”