MCG Cancer Center Fast Facts

 

Cancer is a leading cause of death in Georgia and in the nation.

About seven years ago, cancer was selected as a focus for research and clinical initiatives for the state’s health sciences university.

Other areas include cardiovascular disease, neurological disease, diabetes and obesity and infection/inflammation.

These broad categories of disease include the diseases that affect most Georgia families.

The MCG Cancer Center will serve as a hub for expanding initiatives in basic and clinical cancer research and treatment as well as the education of future cancer physicians and scientists on the Medical College of Georgia campus.

The Facility:

The CRC is a 167,000 square foot, five-story, $54 million facility. Ground was broken in April 2004 and researchers will begin moving in near the end of March 2006.

The glass and pre-cast concrete structure is friendly to the environment, making the best use of sunlight to reduce energy use and featuring an environmentally friendly green roof – complete with long-lasting masonry and glass and slow-growing grass – that minimizes heat loss and gain as well as the impact of water runoff on the city’s sewer system.

The CRC project includes a satellite energy plant with chilled water and steam to provide heating and cooling for the new building as well as two adjacent research facilities and space for future expansion.

Labs in the facility are longer than a football field and their openness reflects and encourages the collaborative nature of research today.

Funding Partners:

Georgia General Obligation Bonds - $15,300,00, including $1.4 million for planning and design.Atlanta-based Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, Inc. - $2 million for construction.

Margin funds given annually by MCG Health, Inc., which manages the MCG Health System, to MCG to support its teaching and research mission - $6,445,000.

The Georgia congressional delegation secured $1,255,000 million in federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services for construction and equipment.

Physicians Practice Group, a multi-specialty group practice comprised of MCG’s physicians - helped finance $29 million of the center’s construction debt through bonds issued by the Richmond County Development Authority.

The Georgia Research Alliance is providing matching funds for a $1.5 million eminent scholar chair, the Cecil F. Whitaker, Jr., M.D. Chair in Cancer, to be held by the cancer center director currently being recruited and MCG is working with the GRA on another GRA eminent scholar chair for breast cancer in conjunction with a generous gift from MCG alumnus, Dr. Lloyd B. Schnuck, Jr.

The GRA also has committed to complete one of two unfinished floors in the new research facility. Work on that floor will commence as soon as the cancer center director is hired.

The Georgia Cancer Coalition, which leads cancer initiatives statewide, has committed funds for nine new Distinguished Cancer Clinicians and Scientists at MCG.