Princeton joins new cancer research hub established with gift from Weill Family Foundation
Princeton University is collaborating with The Rockefeller University, Weill Cornell Medicine and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in a new East Coast hub dedicated to making immunotherapy more effective for cancer patients, an initiative launched with a $50 million gift from the Weill Family Foundation and to be matched with philanthropy from each partner institution that together will total more than $125 million.
Philanthropists Joan and Sanford I. Weill announced the new partnership in a press release today, together with leaders of the four institutions. Joshua Rabinowitz, professor of chemistry, will direct Princeton’s role in the hub.
The Weill Cancer Hub East “connects world-class experts” from the four institutions to advance the promise of immunotherapy for cancer patients by examining “the interplay between nutrition, metabolism and immunotherapy,” the press release said.
“With the best minds in the field armed with the most advanced research techniques, the Weill Cancer Hub East will seek to elevate immunotherapy and improve patient care for people battling cancer,” Sanford “Sandy” Weill said in the press release. “Joan and I could not be more excited about the endless possibilities of this special partnership — investment in science and medicine is our labor of love.”
“The hub will enable extraordinary biomedical scientists, leading clinicians and the New York medical community to join forces in new ways and leverages our academic research with amazing translational and clinical expertise,” said Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber. “At Princeton, we have found that when we support collaboration across disciplines, transformative scientific advances follow. This unprecedented partnership in our region’s biomedical innovation ecosystem has the potential to speed cures and treatments where they are most needed.”
The new Weill Cancer Hub East will let Princeton’s world-class scientists and engineers combine forces with its partner institutions’ cancer doctors and clinicians “in the most integrated way possible — knowing the urgency of helping patients with cancer,” said Rabinowitz, also a professor in the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and director of the Ludwig Princeton Branch. “We have to do whatever we can, scientifically, to find solutions for patients.” Rabinowitz is a professor in Princeton’s Department of Chemistry and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, and he directs the Ludwig Princeton Branch.
Key research areas include studying how diet affects immunotherapy treatments, understanding the role of the gut microbiome in the success of those treatments, and learning how diet and exercise can improve outcomes. “We know diet is part of the problem, and we’re really excited about the possibility for diet to be part of a cancer cure,” said Rabinowitz.
The University homepage announcement and press release can be found here.