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The new facility, which will be located on KU Medical Center\u2019s 39th and Rainbow campus in Kansas City, will give patients access to cutting-edge clinical trials and therapies developed on-site. Physicians and researchers will be able to collaborate in real time on personalized treatment options and make them available to patients more quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Construction of the new complex should conclude by late fall 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2022, the KU Cancer Center was designated as a \u201ccomprehensive\u201d cancer center by the National Cancer Institute. This is the highest level of recognition awarded by the NCI and is the gold standard for cancer centers. The KU Cancer Center is one of only 57 NCI comprehensive centers in the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe knew that (the comprehensive designation) wasn\u2019t the culmination of our work,\u201d Chancellor Doug Girod said at the groundbreaking. \u201cRather, it was an important milestone along the way to our next goal\u2014which was to develop the facilities necessary to bring clinical and research capabilities together in the same place to provide better patient care and facilitate the development of new treatments and cures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
KU Cancer Center\u2019s new complex will support cellular therapy, which uses the body\u2019s own cells to fight each person\u2019s individual cancer with fewer side effects than traditional treatments. It will also house a cellular therapeutics Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) laboratory that will expedite CAR-T cell therapy, a novel treatment that uses genetically re-engineered immune cells known as T cells to find and destroy cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By bringing a cellular therapeutics GMP laboratory in-house, the costs and wait time for the creation of these specialized cells will be reduced. KU Cancer Center is the only cancer center in the region offering all seven FDA-approved CAR-T cell therapies. The newest therapy, dubbed \u201cTriple Threat,\u201d triples the number of molecular targets and is currently under evaluation via a Phase 1, first-in-human clinical trial initiated by KU Cancer Center investigators. The pipeline of potential additional therapies is in the hundreds, providing an exciting future in caring for numerous types of cancers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll recovery from this dreaded disease starts with the power of hope,\u201d said Sen. Moran, who addressed the crowd at the groundbreaking. \u201cToday, we celebrate hope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Funding from multiple sources\u2014including federal and state funds as well as gifts from private foundations and donors\u2014has made the new KU Cancer Center complex possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kristi Birch is assistant editor in the KU Medical Center Office of Communications.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n World-class facility promises to transform cancer care, research in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":1055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-1058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-university","tag-ku-medical-center"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kualumni.org\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/KU-Cancer-Center-complex.jpg\")
\n\n\n\nA culmination of giving<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
2023<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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2024<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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2025<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nPhotos courtesy of KU Cancer Center<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"