Starting in January 1998, New Brunswick Affiliated Hospitals designed, created and constructed a comprehensive, state-of-the-art regional cancer treatment center located in New Brunswick, N.J.

The Cancer Institute of New Jersey integrated clinical and research capacities of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and its two teaching hospitals, the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, and St. Peter's Medical Center (SPMC), all of New Brunswick.

Key Results

• The Cancer Institute of New Jersey was created, with renovations at the two hospitals starting in 1993.
• The Cancer Institute Recruited 158 full-time employees, including 115 physicians and scientists nationally recognized for their contributions to cancer research.
• The Cancer Institute established core research programs in:
  • Cancer pharmacology.
  • Carcinogenesis and chemoprevention.
  • Clinical investigation.
  • Cytokines, growth factors, and signal transduction.
  • Molecular mechanisms of tumor growth.
  • Transcriptional regulation and oncogenesis.
  • Cancer prevention and control.
• The Cancer Institute opened multidisciplinary clinics with programs in breast, lung, gastrointestinal, liver, genito-urinary, leukemia/lymphoma, bone marrow transplantation, and gynecological malignancies.
• Patient visits reached 37,500 per year by 1999 and have continued to increase since then.
• The Cancer Institute set up a telephone information and referral service ("Helplink"), established community counseling services in 1990, and began local cancer screening in 1991.

After the Grant

After the close of the initial grants, the Cancer Institute of New Jersey applied for and was granted designation as a National Cancer Institute Clinical Cancer Center in 1997 and as one of the nation's select Comprehensive Cancer Centers in 1999.

Funding

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) supported the project with three grants totaling $4,564,338 between January 1988 and June 2005.