Huntsman Cancer Institute to Double With 2014 Expansion

SALT LAKE CITY — Billionaire and four-time cancer survivor Jon Huntsman Sr. announced earlier this month that the cancer research center that bears his name will soon double in size. The 220,000-square-foot expansion to Salt Lake City’s Huntsman Cancer Institute is estimated to cost $100 million, and will allow the facility to hire 300 new cancer researchers and specialists. According to Huntsman, this addition will make HCI the largest genetic cancer center in the world.

The facility began as the Utah Regional Cancer Center and was then renamed in honor of Huntsman in 1999. Its mission is “to understand cancer from its beginnings, to use that knowledge in the creation and improvement of new treatments, to relieve the suffering of cancer patients and to provide education about cancer risk, prevention and care.”

The six-story addition to the existing facility will be named the Primary Children’s and Families’ Cancer Research Center. Rather than focusing on treatment, the new addition will be dedicated to studying the relationship between cancer and genetics. It is the fourth such expansion made possible through the continuing support of the Huntsman family. An outpatient clinic and infusion lab was completed in 1999, followed in 2004 by a 50-bed hospital, which was later expanded in 2011.

The center is located on the University of Utah campus and currently holds one of the most comprehensive genetic databases on the globe. According to a profile provided by the institute, its researchers have discovered multiple genes that, when mutated, lead to a greater risk of melanoma, breast cancer and other types of cancer. Mary Beckerle, CEO and director of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, added that the institute’s scientists have discovered inherited susceptibility genes for multiple cancer types including ovarian, head and neck, and colon cancers.
Leukemia, sarcoma and brain cancers will be the primary focus of this new, state-of-the-art facility, in which patients being treated are matched with a full team of researchers and specialists. New laboratories will also be established to dive deeper into both genetic childhood cancers and those that could be passed down through families.

“This additional research space is absolutely essential to HCI’s mission to relieve the suffering of cancer patients through understanding cancer and bringing that understanding to bear in the development of new and better treatments,” said Beckerle, in a statement. "With our state-of-the-art technologies and largest genetic and population database in the entire world, we believe that, with this new facility, we’re going to be able to move to learn more about genetic risks for children’s cancer than has ever occurred in the past."

In total, Huntsman said his family has dedicated roughly $400 million to their eponymous cancer center and has raised nearly $1 billion for overall research. Though the Huntsman family will provide roughly half of the necessary expansion funds, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Utah Legislature and other local groups will contribute the remainder.

"Hopefully we’ll make this disease disappear one way or the other, and we’re throwing everything at it we can in terms of dollars and in terms of wonderful scientific minds," Huntsman said.
In a statement by spokesman Cody Craynor announcing the expansion, the Church of Latter-day Saints said it was “pleased to support this important effort and anticipate it will bless many lives throughout the community and surrounding areas.”
The design process for the new facility is now underway and preliminary plans include a biotechnology center and tumor-imaging suite. Construction is projected to begin sometime in 2014.