Cancer Center Case Statement

The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

CARE SCIENCE FOR COMMUNITIES.

FOR THE WORLD.

The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

Only a generation or two ago, cancer was such a threat that average people hesitated to say the word out loud.

Only a few years ago, we could not have imagined the targeted genetic, molecular, and cellular therapies that are a reality today. And advances continue to arrive at exponentially increasing speed.

So what’s the problem?

Despite best intentions, neither cancer care nor the science behind it are equitable.

The revolution that benefits so many does not yet benefit all.

That’s where we come in.

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CARE FOR COMMUNITIES. SCIENCE FOR THE WORLD.

Cancer affects everyone, in every community.

But it does not affect every person or every community equally. Despite all the scientific progress, health disparities remain a staggering challenge — especially here.

During a 20-minute CTA ride from the Loop to Chicago’s West or South Sides, life expectancy declines by 16 years.

These disparities amplify when it comes to cancer. Illinois has significantly higher cancer death rates than the national average for nearly all cancers, and when we look at racial and ethnic disparities, the picture is even worse. In the Cancer Center’s Cook County catchment area, Black women with metastatic breast cancer are 58% more likely to die from it than non-Hispanic white women. Black men have a 70% higher prostate cancer incidence rate and 2.5 times higher prostate cancer mortality rate than white men. And Black and Latina women are more than three times as likely to die from cervical cancer. And this is not just a Chicagoland problem: in the rural areas of Illinois that we serve, patients have higher breast cancer death rates, higher cervical cancer incidence rates, poorer survival rates, and are more likely to have a latestage diagnosis.

Why do these differences exist?

Because despite astounding progress, advanced screenings and precision treatments still do not reach equitably into our communities. Progress has not meant progress for all.

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The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

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CARE FOR COMMUNITIES. SCIENCE FOR THE WORLD.

Imagine being told that you have cancer, but that the best case scenarios for survival don’t apply to you, or that you can’t access or afford them, or — perhaps most devastating of all — that your cancer was preventable. We’re working to make sure that no one has to experience this kind of heartbreak.

We confront complex challenges to deliver the best care to our communities and share our leadingedge science with the world. With your help, our solutions to key challenges will improve and save lives not only in Chicago and Illinois, but around the world, as the models and practices we create and refine here set standards for care everywhere.

Our locations throughout Cook County, Illinois provide coverage in areas of greatest need.

University of Illinois Cancer Center Cancer Case Density <2% 2%-5% 6%-9% 10%-13% >15%

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OUR HOSPITAL AND CLINICS

house dedicated teams of radiologists, medical and surgical oncologists, surgeons, nurses and therapists, who provide care at every stage of a patient’s journey, regardless of ability to pay.

UI HEALTH

offers clinical navigators, nurses and nurse practitioners, and clinical research coordinators who ensure the best individualized pathways for each patient.

MILE SQUARE HEALTH CENTERS

provide geographically and economically accessible quality care for underserved communities, and offer referrals to diagnostic care, and access to genetic and survivorship programs.

The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

COMMUNITY OUTREACH

includes screening and early detection programs embedded in the most vulnerable communities.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

enables us to tailor education and service navigation culturally, building a history of trust.

COMMUNITY INFORMED

needs assessments and research implementation are informed by the voices of our communities.

EQUITABLE PRECISION ONCOLOGY CARE Our patients are at the center of community-informed and team-based research and care.

Our equitable precision oncology approach surrounds every patient with access to comprehensive resources from previvorship through survivorship.

HEALTH POLICY

research informs change and advocates for patient needs at the local and national levels.

TRAINEE EDUCATION

creates a diverse pipeline of cancer researchers and physician-scientists who reflect national diversity.

CLINICAL TRIALS

RESEARCH

spans discovery to translational research and includes genetic, biologic and social determinants of health that address barriers and provide the best treatment options.

ensure that underserved patients are included at the earliest stages of trial design to reduce disparities and improve outcomes.

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CARE FOR COMMUNITIES. SCIENCE FOR THE WORLD.

CHALLENGE:

Cancer research doesn’t reflect — or include — the world’s patients.

At the most basic level, inequities don’t start with a cancer diagnosis. They are baked into systems and infrastructures, and until recently they have been embedded into the design of scientific research.

Have you ever wondered who’s included in major trials of new cancer therapies?

All too often, it has been a very narrow sampling of our world’s heterogeneous population. Fewer than 5% of adults with cancer participate in clinical trials, and most who do are white. Racially and ethnically diverse populations have not been included, so it’s no surprise that these groups suffer when treatments designed without their

participation fail them. Disparities in clinical trial participation are one of the reasons certain racial and ethnic groups have worse cancer outcomes. We have already seen how certain FDA-approved, blockbuster drugs designed to inhibit pathways in cancer fail in populations not included or underrepresented in scientific trials.

Lives have been lost and shortened because medical research and clinical decisionmaking are not yet widely designed to benefit all patients.

OUR SOLUTION: Leading With Inclusive Science

We can reduce this harm, and improve outcomes for thousands of patients here and millions of patients worldwide. At the Cancer Center, where we have built trust over generations, 79% of the patients enrolled in clinical trials are Black or Latinx.

This diversity helps our patients, and it helps underrepresented people worldwide.

We’re proud to be a leading site for inclusive drug trials, but we are also a leading site for inclusive oncology. We go beyond the gold standard of precision oncology, using genetic information to inhibit a common pathway or identify an optimal treatment for a patient. Our approach combines

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precision oncology with the too oftenignored variables of that patient’s lived experience: their environmental exposures and the social determinants of their health that may shape cancers.

We call this equitable precision oncology, and we are at its forefront.

The more we can grow and refine these revolutionary, inclusive models here, the better the prognosis will be for cancer patients everywhere.

The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

WE ARE:

One of only four inaugural institutions to receive the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Health Equity Research grant

Among the top National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded minority-serving institutions nationally, with more than $33 million in active cancer-focused grants

An innovation engine, generating more than $50 million a year in income from 289 licenses, including Tice BCG, a treatment for bladder cancer

Invited to apply for National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation, with the potential to become one of just 73 elite designated Cancer Centers nationally

“Our science and our approach to care give voice to the voiceless. Not a voice through communication but through their participation in science. In this way, they can speak and we can work to change perspectives and outcomes nationally.”

VK GADI, MD, PhD DEPUTY DIRECTOR UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CANCER CENTER 7

CARE FOR COMMUNITIES. SCIENCE FOR THE WORLD.

Dr. Jan Kitajewski’s laboratory is tackling triple-negative breast cancer by investigating whether a genetic mutation common in people of western and central African descent that offers protection against malaria may also make those who carry it more susceptible to this aggressive form of breast cancer. Yet the lab’s work does not only focus on understanding the genetic determinants of cancer in this group.

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Like much of the work at the Cancer Center, the research takes into consideration the social determinants of health that may lead to a cancer diagnosis, and offers opportunities for community members to gain insight into how developing scientific models and participation in studies lead to better care.

The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

“By perfecting our model of equitable precision oncology and sharing our research widely, we encourage the same commitments around the world. Accelerating these solutions requires the investment of philanthropy.”

JAN KITAJEWSKI, PhD DIRECTOR UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CANCER CENTER

CANCER PREVENTION & CONTROL Understanding multi-level determinants of cancer risk, causes, and outcomes.

CANCER BIOLOGY

TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH

Understanding tumor initiation, progression and metastasis.

Translating discoveries into clinical care.

OUR RESEARCH CONTINUUM 9

CARE FOR COMMUNITIES. SCIENCE FOR THE WORLD.

CHALLENGE:

Too many people don’t know what they can do to prevent cancer, or seek help too late.

Vulnerable populations face many barriers to healthcare access and education, from cost, to lack of trust rooted in historic injustices, to few providers who look like them and understand their needs. For these and many other reasons, we see too many patients with late-stage diagnoses. This disproportion reflects the very healthcare disparities we seek to overcome, and it also motivates us to put outsized resources into addressing the underlying factors. Some patients lack access to information about screening guidelines.

Many cannot successfully navigate logistics, such as transportation, child care, and missed work.

Others do not realize the Cancer Center serves everyone, regardless of their ability to pay or provide proof of insurance.

It’s transformational when medical science develops a new intervention or cure; it’s even better when we can prevent disease from occurring in the first place. The more we resolve to focus on education — breaking down barriers to access and other social determinants of health — the more we will reap the benefits of the revolution in cancer science. Prediction and prevention will be just as important and life-saving as the next great cancer drugs.

“For more than 30 years, the Cancer Center has earned the trust of the communities we serve. Community work takes time and resources. You need to grow your staff and empower advocates in every neighborhood. You need to go out again and again—so often, in fact, that you become part of the community. When you shed the institutional or ‘ivory tower’ reputation, you are finally able to start building trust. We have that trust.”

YAMILÉ MOLINA, MS, MPH, PHD ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR COMMUNITY OUTREACH, ENGAGEMENT, AND HEALTH EQUITY 10

The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

OUR SOLUTION:

Care and Education That Begin With and In the Community We don’t wait for patients to come to us.

Instead, we work within communities on care and education, listening to community voices and finding solutions for community-identified experiences and challenges. We have several advantages that enable us to move these efforts forward quickly. The first is an infrastructure unlike any peer, anchored by 140 community partnerships, our Mile Square network of federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and reinforced by the strengths of UI Health, the University of Illinois at Chicago’s academic health enterprise.

Together, scientists and communities address local needs and priorities while ensuring access to the most advanced care.

Our local communities have priority access to best practice and models in our Genetic Services and Survivorship programs — the only comprehensive services in FQHC settings in the country. Our patients also benefit from cutting edge advances in identifying cures and testing solutions to accessing these cures through Translational Oncology, Cancer Prevention and Control, and Cancer Biology.

Where we and our partners have a presence, late-stage cancer diagnoses have declined over three decades.

We work hand in hand with the city and state to play a leadership role in comprehensive cancer control and fund numerous cancer prevention and screening programs in our FQHC and hospital sites, but also with 20 external FQHCs and hospitals embedded in historically impoverished communities. We provide free services to the uninsured and underinsured. But our greatest strength lies in how we approach this work: by learning and understanding our community and its needs, we can design the best research and then discover and deliver equitable solutions and interventions.

The second is an established infrastructure that prioritizes community relationships and advocacy. Our Office of Community Engagement and Health Equity works to foster strong, bidirectional partnerships that focus on building the capacity of other FQHCs and hospitals that primarily serve marginalized communities. We also provide skills training for our clinicians and scientists, who are committed to actively listening and learning with community members.

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CARE FOR COMMUNITIES. SCIENCE FOR THE WORLD.

Laytunya Culverson has received life-saving care at UI Health three times. In 1999, UI surgeons repaired Culverson’s aneurysm, and in 2007 she received a kidney transplant.

That’s why, when the Bronzeville resident became ill in early 2020, her family urged her to seek care at UI Health. Tests revealed that she had Stage 4 colon cancer. Culverson has nothing but praise for the team who delivered a swift and successful surgical intervention, and then supported her through treatment.

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She reserves special praise for her surgeon, Dr. Pier Cristoforo Giulianatti, who, she says, “stood by me as if I was his daughter,” and for her medical oncologist, Dr. Shikha Jain, a colorectal cancer specialist, who checked on her frequently during treatment. Today, Culverson is enjoying the things she loves best — time with her friends and family — and making sure they get the cancer screenings available through the Cancer Center.

The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

“The Cancer Center has been a blessing to me. I can’t explain how good they have been to me, and how much they care about each person.”

LAYTUNYA CULVERSON CANCER CENTER PATIENT

A federally designated minorityserving institution $500+ million in research funding across 16 colleges, including 7 health science colleges

A tertiary care hospital for the state of Illinois with 40+ outpatient clinics 100+ providers named to the America’s top doctors list

50 years of building trust in the community 13 federally qualified health centers caring for nearly 40,000 people annually

More than 1.3 million patient visits each year

Our research and care are grounded in a comprehensive health and science ecosystem.

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CARE FOR COMMUNITIES. SCIENCE FOR THE WORLD.

CHALLENGE:

We can’t fulfill our mission without exceptional people.

Without the right people, none of this happens. Our world-changing ambitions call for world-class professionals to carry them out. No longer is a lone scientist working at a laboratory bench likely to produce medical breakthroughs. Science is now a team activity. In cancer, a single lab might rely on the specialized skills of a radiation oncologist, a biologist, a data specialist, a public health expert — the list goes on. The teamwork of such experts is knit together into a seamless creative unit. The same is true for the delivery of clinical care, for education, and for community outreach.

Meeting our challenges requires specialized teams of exceptionally prepared professionals.

We’re one of only a handful of institutions awarded the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Health Disparities T32 training grant for more than 30 years.

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Our return on funding investments for faculty training and recruiting, measured by the new grants that faculty members secure.

Our broad mission includes not only those who work at the Cancer Center, but also those who train here, and will go on to share the impact of our mission nationwide.

Research and care are stronger, more accurate, actionable, and equitable when people with diverse perspectives and lived experiences design and deliver them.

In a fiercely competitive environment, we must continually compete to recruit, retain, and train the most accomplished and promising cancer specialists. Without the resources to secure this leadership, we will fall short of our ambitious goals. We need the Cancer Center to be a career destination for top talent.

The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

OUR SOLUTION:

The Right People, in the Right Place, with the Right Training The good news is we have a great head start.

Increasingly, the Cancer Center has become the beacon for a diverse team of leaders at the pinnacle of cancer health equity research and care. More than 240 strong, the Cancer Center’s researchers and physicians combine expertise in cancer biology, genetics, cellular science, and public health to benefit the most vulnerable cancer patients in Cook County and beyond. The impact of our care, community outreach, and education derive from these experts’ skills and commitment.

Their passion for innovation propels our research productivity. Their sensitivity anchors initiatives like our Survivorship Program. Our Cancer Research Training and Education Coordination team oversees programming that educates, supports, and retains trainees, fosters faculty development, and promotes the next generation of leaders from underrepresented groups.

These trainees go on to outcompete peers for premium appointments in leading institutions around the country, ensuring national impact in the cancer health equity space.

Our partnership with the UIC College of Medicine is equally essential to the quality and diversity of our people. The College not only graduates one out of three Illinois physicians, it graduates the most Latino MDs and is one of the top five schools for Black MDs in the continental United States. Over the past five years, the Cancer Center also trained more than 430 earlystage investigators—39% of them from underrepresented groups.

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CARE FOR COMMUNITIES. SCIENCE FOR THE WORLD.

“This is an amazing place to work.

We’re focused unapologetically on cancer health equity. It’s not just a byproduct of what we do here. Equity is our reason for being.”

RYAN NGUYEN, DO ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

A University of Illinois Cancer Centertrained medical oncologist, Nguyen’s work with our patients inspired him to bring a groundbreaking clinical trial for a new immune therapy for late-stage squamous cell carcinoma here. Emblematic of those who train and work here, Nguyen’s work is transforming cancer care and research in at

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least three significant ways: by broadening access to promising new treatment options for local communities, by making the Cancer Center a destination for future trials because of the diversity of the patients enrolled, and by adding more inclusive information to the data sets used to diagnose and treat cancers around the world.

The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

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CARE FOR COMMUNITIES. SCIENCE FOR THE WORLD.

Rendering of the North Plaza at the planned Drug Discovery and Cancer Research Pavilion.

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The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

Our Campaign Priorities How will we deepen the strengths that distinguish us to provide the next level of impact, and to close the cancer disparities gap in Chicago, Cook County, and beyond?

Together, we will: Change the face of cancer care by perfecting our model of equitable precision oncology, and sharing our inclusive science with the world.

REVOLUTIONARY RESEARCH

Improve outcomes for thousands of patients in the communities we serve through enhanced care and education.

COMPREHENSIVE CARE

Ensure our momentum by recruiting, retaining, and training the diverse, essential experts who will lead and share this work into the future.

ESSENTIAL EXPERTISE

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CARE FOR COMMUNITIES. SCIENCE FOR THE WORLD.

We know how to close the gaps in cancer research, care and outcomes.

Your support is essential to eliminating cancer disparities.

If you believe in the power of science, you believe in our work.

If you believe that everyone has the same right to high-quality care designed to give them the best possible outcomes, you believe in our work.

As you read this, someone is suffering because we haven’t yet had the resources to discover the treatment models that work best for them. We can change that.

We are changing that.

That’s where you come in.

Partner with us, and together we will revolutionize cancer care for everyone by eliminating disparities and promoting health equity in research, access, treatment, and education.

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In 100 years, who will we say turned the tide against cancer in our communities? Who will have contributed the most powerful inclusive science? Who will have saved the most lives?

Together with your help, the University of Illinois Cancer Center will be at the top of that list.

The Campaign for the University of Illinois Cancer Center

Help us revolutionize solutions to the cancer challenges of the 21st century, leveraging our distinct abilities to elucidate and reduce disparities and improve cancer health outcomes for all.

Join us as we: Change the face of cancer care by perfecting our model of equitable, precision oncology, and sharing our inclusive science with the world.

Improve outcomes for thousands of patients in the communities we serve through enhanced care and education.

Ensure our momentum by recruiting, retaining, and training the diverse, essential experts who will lead and share this work into the future.

Philanthropic Priorities PEOPLE ($10M)

PLACES ($20M)

Enable thought leaders to tackle some of today’s most pressing equity research questions.

Endowments create permanent funding sources that allow us to attract and retain a renowned and resilient oncology-focused workforce whose leadership and prowess will ensure our momentum and outcomes well into the future.

Transform lives through investment in capital and equipment. Capital investments allow our faculty researchers to scale our oncology enterprise and rapidly deliver transformation in health equity discovery and care.

• Endowment of the Cancer Center directorship and deputy directorship • Endowed professorships • Endowed fellowship program • Endowed Cancer Health Equity Research Center

RESEARCH ($15M) Improve the prognosis for patients everywhere through support of research with an equitable precision focus. Investing in Cancer Center faculty researchers’ pilot studies can yield a 10:1 return on investment as measured by new grants secured.

• Named research fund • Seed or pilot funding for: • • • •

Clinical trials Multi-institutional trials Team science program project grants Investigator-initiated trials of precision-based therapies • ‘Omics research

• Drug Discovery and Cancer Research Pavilion Democratize discoveries and cures that reflect our nation’s diversity and accelerate the bench-to-market pipeline for the latest treatments. DDCRP will be the space where we focus collaborative efforts to address health disparities directly through the development of novel therapeutics.

• Outpatient Cancer Care Building Increase dedicated space for critical cancer care, including infusions; our cell therapy program; phase I trials; and screenings, including diagnostic equipment.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING ($5M) Expand opportunities to educate and train a diverse and inclusive biomedical sciences workforce and support bidirectional education among the communities we serve and Cancer Center researchers.

• Pipeline cancer research training and education programs for middle school through early-stage investigators • Community partner training programs • Patient educational modules on screening, treatment, and survivorship