A $125 million gift to create a new cancer center at the Hopkins Hospital was announced Tuesday by Vice President Joe Biden, former New York City Mayor and Hopkins alumnus Michael Bloomberg and University President Ronald J. Daniels.
The gift created the Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, which will unite more than 100 scientists and clinicians from diverse fields to research new therapies.
Biden’s oldest son Beau passed away from brain cancer last year at age 46, inspiring the Vice President’s decision to lead the “moonshot” campaign to “put ourselves on a path to achieve, in just five years, research and treatment gains that otherwise might take a decade or more,” according to White House officials.
“This Institute is going to perfect new therapies and bring hope to millions of people,” Biden said. “I’m convinced, not only will we save millions of lives, we will re-instill in the American public the notion that anything is possible.”
Biden is travelling across the country to jump-start new cancer-fighting efforts, part of the Obama administration’s one billion-dollar initiative.
Daniels and Paul Rothman, Dean of the Medical Faculty and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, sent an email to the University about the Institute.
“The Institute will focus on the development of promising therapies that unleash the power of patients’ natural defense—their immune system—to seek out and eradicate cancer,” the email stated.
Of the $125 million in funding, Bloomberg donated $50 million, founder of Jones Apparel Group Sidney Kimmel donated $50 million, and more than a dozen other supporters donated a total of $25 million.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Maryland Senators Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin were in attendance, as well as researchers and medical students.
After the event, which was standing room only, Biden shook students’ hands and took photographs with them.
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