USC Receives $5M for Cancer Research
Photo/Steve Cohn
The gift will extend funding of the foundation’s Innovative Tailored Therapies Initiative at USC/Norris and the Keck School of Medicine of USC. The foundation previously supported the establishment of the initiative in 2002.
Created in 1955 by Leland K. Whittier and the Whittier family, the Los Angeles-based foundation supports innovative endeavors in education, the sciences, and health and medicine.
The Whittier Initiative is a multi-year program that addresses the needs of scientists in developing successful new therapies to treat cancer patients. The latest gift will support the program for five years.
“The initiative has been instrumental in enabling more than 40 faculty physicians to conduct pilot research studies,” said Peter Jones, director of USC/Norris. “These studies have led to additional federal funding, clinical trials and publications, and they continue to push the cancer research frontier in our quest to deliver more effective therapies.”
Funding from the Whittier Foundation has led to patients receiving access to new non-toxic therapies and the development of new detectors for lung cancer.
Tailoring therapies for individuals and predicting a patient’s cancer risk is a hallmark of USC/Norris, Jones said. And that is the sort of science the Whittier Initiative was designed to fund – science that could make a difference in the lives of all cancer patients.
“A researcher’s success is usually measured by how much grant funding he or she receives,” Jones said. “Here, we want to measure them by the fact that they actually did something to help patients. The foundation’s gift allows us to do that.”
Latest stories
- MSW@USC Student to Compete in 2012 Paralympics February 10, 2012 9:22 AM
- Judy Woodruff: Public Broadcasting Has Changed for the Good February 10, 2012 8:49 AM
- USC Price School Celebrates Naming Gift February 9, 2012 2:45 PM
-
For Journalists »
-
USC in the News
for 2/8/2012 »-
The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
-
-
Campus News
- Capital Connections
- USC faculty, staff and alumni in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento
- In Print
- New and recent books written or edited by USC faculty and staff
- Family Matters
- Achievements and awards
- Obituaries