DIRECTOR’S NOTE SPRING 2017

To the Cancer Community at Illinois – our faculty, staff, undergraduate and graduate students, student groups, external partners, and community members and other supporters, THANK YOU for a wonderful year. We should be very pleased as, together, we have accomplished much this academic year. I look forward to us working together in future community activities to take cancer research and education to an even higher level at Illinois.

The achievements and developments from this year are noteworthy. Each year, we continue to welcome new faculty and staff members to our community. Our annual community meeting that was held in October provided a progress report and outlined plans for the future. Many thanks to the speakers for your continued engagement and support. Our researchers won kudos for exceptional studies, were awarded many prestigious awards and provided exciting advances that can change cancer care and lives in the future. Together, our faculty were awarded national centers and initiated many exciting new studies.

I would like to once again recognize the generous support of Ira and Debra Cohen and collaborations with the University of Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago for the researcHStart program. Thank you to Carle Foundation Hospital for their support of the C STAR program which is making excellent progress. The Mayo Clinic & Illinois Alliance continues to be strong and multiple studies with our partners at UIC are ongoing. Finally, the exciting new college of medicine at the University formulated a curriculum and selected a new Dean, Prof. King Li, who is a distinguished cancer researcher.

Exciting times indeed for our community! We are all eagerly looking forward to what lies ahead for us.