An architect’s rendering shows the OU Cancer Institute, which is scheduled to open in 2010. The 220,000 square-foot building will combine cancer-related care, patient support services and clinical research infrastructure under one roof on the OUHSC campus in Oklahoma City.


With endowed faculty positions, the OU Cancer Institute will be able to recruit and retain more researchers like Chinthalapally V. Rao, Ph.D., the Kerley-Cade Chair in Cancer Research and director of the OUCI Cancer Chemoprevention Program. Rao’s research focuses on designing and developing strategies for clinical prevention of colorectal cancer and other aerodigestive tract cancers.

I n 1998, the family of Mai Eager Anderson lost their mother, grandmother and dear friend to lung cancer. In June 2008, the Anderson family endowed a chair in her name at the University of Oklahoma Foundation to help prevent other families from facing a similar loss.

The Mai Eager Anderson Chair in Cancer Clinical Trials, funded by her four children—Carl B. Anderson, III, David Anderson, Tina Anderson Mooney, and the late Gretchen Anderson—will help the University recruit a nationally recognized clinical trials investigator to the OU Cancer Institute. Clinical trials provide cancer patients with first access to the latest cancer therapies, from biomedical to pharmaceutical breakthroughs.

The holder of the Anderson Chair also will serve as medical director of the Oklahoma Cancer Consortium, a statewide clinical trials network made up of OU Cancer Institute physicians, community-based cancer physicians and hospital-based cancer centers.

In October, the OU institute announced a new radiation treatment, known as electronic breast brachytherapy, for early-stage breast cancer that dramatically reduces treatment and recovery time. The University was among only 10 sites participating in the clinical trial nationwide and now offers the procedure to its patients.

With each success of the clinical trials, the University is delivering on its charge from the Oklahoma legislature in 2001 to provide state leadership in cancer research, prevention and education, and treatment. Oklahoma has one of the worst cancer incidences and mortality rates in the nation. One in every three Oklahoma women and one in every two Oklahoma men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and nearly 7,500 will die from the disease each year.

Currently there are more than 300 clinical trials ongoing at the OU Cancer Institute, which is housed in buildings across the OU Health Sciences Center campus in Oklahoma City. In 2010, the OU Cancer Institute will open as a bricks and mortar facility, across the street from the OU Physicians Building on the HSC campus. The 220,000-square-foot building will combine cancer-related services and clinical research infrastructure under one roof, offering comprehensive clinical care and patient support services, including counseling and cancer education resources for families.

“Our family is so proud to be a part of this institute,” said Carl Anderson. “This facility will offer care and hope to so many other families of cancer patients.”

More than $30 million in private funding has been raised since OU kicked off its campaign for endowed faculty positions for the Cancer Institute in 2006. In addition to the Mai Eager Anderson Chair, endowments at $1 million or above include:

• Louise and Clay Bennett Chair in Cancer
• Jim and Christy Everest Endowed Chair in Cancer Research
• Jim and Christy Everest Endowed Chair in Developmental Therapeutics Research
• E.L. and Thelma Gaylord Foundation Endowed Chair in Cancer Survivorship
• E.L. and Thelma Gaylord Foundation Endowed Chair in Cancer Palliative Care
• Virginia Kerley Cade Endowed Chair in Cancer Development
• Aubrey K. and Kathleen B. McClendon Chair in Translational Cancer Research
• Steven E. Moore Chair in Head and Neck Cancer
• Rainbolt Family Chair in Cancer
• Nancy Johnston Records Chair in Hematology-Oncology
• Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation Chair in Cancer Research
• Endowed Chair in Cancer Screening, Outreach and Education