Gifted Family

The Renette and Marshall Ezralow Family Research Tower is named for longtime USC/Norris supporters.

by Jon Nalick

Honoring a family that has partnered with the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center for more than two decades, the USC/Norris officially named the Renette and Marshall Ezralow Family Research Tower.

Real estate developer Marshall Ezralow and family members attended a dedication ceremony that also recognized a new gift of $6 million from Ezralow to spur cancer research—a longtime interest of the family.

The gift will help establish the Renette and Marshall Ezralow Family Chair in Cancer Therapeutics and recruit new scientists to research the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and eventual cure of cancer.

Ezralow says that the gift in large part

honors his wife Renette, a tireless fund-raiser and longtime champion of cancer research, who succumbed to ovarian cancer in 2002.

“That’s my biggest motivation—for her to be remembered for all the work she had done to fight cancer even long before she was diagnosed with it herself,” he says.

He notes that Renette Ezralow, who was treated for several years at USC/Norris, founded and chaired the Women’s Cancer Research Fund, which raised more than $15 million to spur vital cancer research.

He says that his family, which first came to Los Angeles in 1907, has provided financial support for cancer research in general for more than 30 years and to USC/Norris in particular for at least 20 years.

In that time, Ezralow says, he has witnessed incremental advances each year that over time have translated into significant improvements in patients’ survival and quality of life.

Also in that time, he realized that even if cancer cannot be conquered, it can be controlled, and that he could help ensure that researchers had the tools they needed to make that happen.

“For me, it’s just a privilege and an honor to be in a position to give to such a worthwhile cause,” he adds.

Ezralow’s sons Marc and Bryan, both partners in the Ezralow Company, plan to monitor how the gift is used with an eye toward providing additional funding contingent on productive work and positive results.

Marc Ezralow, who is also a member of the board of directors of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Phase One, which funds cancer research, says he thinks his mother would approve of his family’s continuing her efforts.

“I think she would be very proud of this gift to the Norris—and potentially following up with additional funding in the future,” he says, “because she really devoted herself to finding a cure for cancer, not just for herself, but for others. I really think of her looking down on us and smiling.”

Parkash Gill, M.D., professor of medicine and pathology, will serve as the inaugural holder of the Ezralow Family Chair.

Since 1999, the Ezralows have helped fund Gill’s research to develop strategies to cut off a tumor’s production of new blood vessels, a process known as angiogenesis, which delivers nourishment to malignant cells.