Florence and Herbert Irving, co-founder and former vice chairman of the SYSCO Corporation, have made the largest donation in the history of P&S, and in doing so have partnered with Columbia in the fight against some of the most serious diseases of our time. In 1987, Mr. and Mrs. Irving gave $11 million to sponsor young researchers known as Irving Scholars and to establish the Irving Center for Clinical Research. In 1995, they donated $12 million to re-create Columbia-Presbyterian's cancer treatment center, in the Atchley Pavilion. And a recent pledge earmarked for creating the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center Including the Herbert Irving Professorship and four additional professorships brings their total contribution to $35 million, ranking the Irvings' total donation as the largest in CPMC history.

Mr. Irving is already an expert in collaboration. When World War II ended, he joined Global Frozen Foods, a business his brother-in-law had started a few years earlier. Recognizing the popularity of frozen foods such as fish sticks, French fries, and corn, Mr. Irving built Global into the largest frozen food distributorship in New York City, serving supermarket chains such as Grand Union and Waldbaum's. In 1969, Global and eight other distributors from across the country created one of the first and largest successful business partnerships, known today as SYSCO (Systems and Services Company) Corporation. Today, SYSCO Corporation is a $13 billion Fortune 500 company and America's largest marketer and distributor of food service products.
Says Mr. Irving, who has himself been a patient at CPMC, "There is a renaissance in cancer care going on at Columbia-Presbyterian. Florence and I are enormously proud to be a part of it." Leading the way is Dr. Karen Antman, the Wu Professor of Medicine (Oncology) and director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. "By the year 2005, cancer will be the major cause of death in the United States unless something is done now to change that trend," says Dr. Antman. "The Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center will be at the forefront of preventing, diagnosing, treating, and researching cancer." The center is one of only four such facilities in New York City.

A major renovation of the 10th floor, dedicated to the prevention and treatment of breast cancer, has already been completed. For the first time, the facilities for mammograms, needle aspirations, radiation therapy, genetic counseling, nutrition counseling, and psychiatry are all on one floor. Grouping related facilities means patients can get faster diagnosis, treatment, and counseling, says Dr. Antman. "If a woman's mammogram comes up positive, we can do a needle aspiration the same day so she doesn't have to chew her nails for weeks, waiting for an appointment and worrying," she says.
Simple, elegant renovations to the waiting area have given mammogram patients a private space. A back hallway allows patients to move from one treatment area to the next or talk privately to receptionists about billing or appointments without coming into view of people in the outer waiting room. Staff members carefully chose colors in the artwork, walls, and carpets to omit the colors of chemotherapy medications, which can trigger nausea in some patients. "These changes didn't cost much, but they're enormously important," says Dr. Antman.

Medical considerations are apparent throughout. Rooms designed for bone marrow transplants and high-dose chemotherapy will have special filters and air handling systems designed to maintain a germ-free atmosphere.

Floors 7 through 12 also will be remodeled and redecorated. Floor 7 will be for children with cancer; floor 8 will be for medicine, surgery, gynecology, and surgical oncology; floor 9 will house a chemotherapy center; floor 11 is for prostate cancer; floor 12, gastrointestinal cancer.

Part of the Irvings' gift also will support a cancer genetics floor in the Berrie Pavilion in the Audubon Biomedical Science and Technology Park.

Although it's hard to predict what cancer research will reveal in the future, Dr. Antman believes progress will continue steadily. "Over the 20 years of my career in medicine, curative treatments have been developed one step at a time for leukemia, lymphoma, testis, breast, and colon cancers," she says. "Advances in this field will continue in that way. That's just realistic." The area she finds most exciting in current cancer research is genetics, which gives us the ability to identify those at risk for certain malignancies. "Regular testing of such patients can diagnose disease early when it is most likely to be cured. Even better, regular surveillance of patients at high risk--for example, colon cancer with removal of precancerous polyps--may prevent the disease altogether, the best outcome. That's cost-effective and a good way to concentrate resources." The Irving funding has made it possible for Dr. Antman to attract top cancer researchers in these and other areas. Under her direction, they are able to excel and see their projects to completion.

"In addition to providing financial support for the cancer center, Florence and Herbert Irving remain personally involved in cancer center planning and construction," says Dr. Antman. "He is clearly interested in meeting 'his' physicians and investigators and clearly relishes their accomplishments." Mr. Irving presided over the Cancer Advisory Board Meeting in October celebrating the cancer center's 25th anniversary.
To learn more about the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, visit http://www.ccc.columbia.edu/ on the World Wide Web.

Advancing Cancer Care through Research

Significant cancer studies are under way at CPMC:

Genetically altered bone marrow. Dr. Karen Antman, who has a special interest in breast cancer and sarcoma (cancers arising in the bone and connective tissues), is collaborating with Dr. Charles Hesdorffer, associate professor of clinical medicine, and Dr. Arthur Bank, professor of medicine and of genetics and development, on a project that will show whether genetically altered stem cells, some of which ultimately can become immune-cell-producing bone marrow cells, can help protect patients against high doses of chemotherapy. The researchers piggybacked a multidrug resistance gene on a retrovirus in the lab and exposed human stem cells to the virus, then returned them to the patient. Though this early test was intended only to prove that the procedure was safe, the researchers say that the cells of two of their five patients show evidence that they accepted the genetically altered retrovirus.

Dr. Karen Antman, the Wu Professor of Medicine (Oncology) and director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center

High-dose chemotherapy.
Dr. Linda Vahdat, assistant professor of medicine, is giving three high-dose courses of the chemotherapy drugs taxol, melphalan, and others to women with breast cancer that has spread. These women also had stem cell transplants. About 20 percent of the women who undergo the high-dose chemotherapy are still disease-free after five years, a remarkable improvement over the expected 3 percent disease-free rate among women who do not have high-dose therapy. Dr. Vahdat is also testing immune system components such as a interferon and interleukin 2 to see if they will stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells.

Other research includes work on:
P-TEN, a gene on chromosome 10 that appears to be mutated in brain, prostate, and breast cancers (see Concerted Efforts Bring Discovery)

stem cell transplants for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)

cyclin D, a marker for many types of cancer

the v-RAS oncogene and how it affects thyroid cells

the gene HRAD9, which likely plays an important role in how human cells respond to radiation exposure

mutations in the gene BCL6 that permit lymphoma

yeast cells kinases, which help regulate the activities of proteins that may be key in cancer progression

yeast DNA rearrangement, which may be the basis of oncogene activation

meiosis and chromosome stability in yeast

drugs for prostate and bladder cancer