Gov. Perdue Notes NCI Cancer Center Designation

Gov. Sonny Perdue this week announced that Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute has earned the coveted National Cancer Institute Cancer Center designation.

Winship is the first medical facility in Georgia to earn this distinction. As an NCI designated center, Winship joins an elite group of 64 cancer centers nationwide that are on the forefront of the battle against cancer.

Winship’s NCI designation will reportedly benefit patients through increased access to new clinical trials and technologies that are available through NCI-designated cancer centers.

As an NCI-designated center, Winship will receive more than $4.2 million in funding over the next three years to grow scientific research. The NCI will then review Emory’s designation for a five-year renewal. According to the NCI, a designated cancer center’s research components are the core of a much larger assembly of cancer activities, including clinical care, support services and education, extending the benefits of research directly to patients, their families, and the general public.

The Winship Cancer Institute is part of Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center, Emory Healthcare and Emory University. Researchers and clinical members of the cancer center are faculty at Emory or at partner institutions such as Georgia Institute of Technology. Faculty members collaborate with national and state agencies, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Cancer Society.

The Winship Cancer Institute was established in 1937 through a $50,000 gift to Emory from Coca Cola CEO Robert Woodruff, who named the center after his grandfather, Robert Winship. Woodruff’s vision was for a center that focused on research, education and patient care.

The Woodruff Foundation has continued to support Emory in achieving this vision, and in 2002 Emory dedicated the 275,000 square-foot Winship Cancer Institute building, constructed with funds from the Woodruff Foundation and designed to facilitate development of new and more effective cancer treatments.