By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Forty cancer survivors shared the stage with dignitaries such as Gov. Mike Beebe and former U.S. Sen. David Pryor at a ceremony today marking the opening of a 12-story expansion to the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute.
The 300,000-square-foot building on the grounds of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences will begin accepting patients Monday.
“You are the reason that we are all here today,” UAMS Chancellor Dr. Dan Rahn said to the survivors, who received a standing ovation from the audience.
The audience also gave a standing ovation to Lisenne Rockefeller, widow of former Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller, for whom the institute is named. Win Rockefeller died in 2006 at age 57 from myeloproliferative disease, a blood disorder related to leukemia.
Rahn said the institute began as a dream of UAMS doctors Kent Westbrook and James Suen in 1975. They received a commitment from UAMS’ administration in the mid-1980s, and the institute opened in a four-story facility in 1989, adding seven more floors in 1996.
“Not only has their vision of applying the latest cancer research advancements to the most outstanding and compassionate care come true, it’s flourished, and it’s profoundly affected the lives of thousands of patients and their loved ones,” Rahn said.
Funding for the $130 million project included $37.5 million in state general improvement funds, which had to be matched with private donations; $35 million from bonds paid for with the state’s settlement with the tobacco industry; and a $9.3 million donation from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.
The expansion doubles the institute’s clinical and laboratory space, which will aid cancer researchers in their work, Rahn said.
“Without research, there are no new advances,” he said.
Beebe said the cancer institute’s multiple myeloma program is No. 1 in the nation, and its other cancer programs are world-class.
“We ought to be talking more about it across this state,” he said.
Beebe said the rich and famous from around the world seek treatment at the institute, but because of privacy laws their visits are not publicized — except in some cases after death, as when actor Roy Scheider died at UAMS from multiple myeloma in 2008.
“You don’t even know how many folks that have a choice to go anywhere on earth choose to come right here,” Beebe said.
Officials with the institute said more than 120,000 patients receive treatment there each year.
After the ceremony, visitors were invited to tour the expansion, which features balconies and a garden and makes copious use of natural light.
In the facility’s atrium is a sculpture by University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor Michael Warrick entitled “The Seed of Hope.” As patients complete their cancer treatments they will be given two tokens, one to keep and one to toss into an opening in the sculpture, said Dr. Peter Emanuel, the institute’s director.
“Our hope is that soon the tokens in ‘The Seed of Hope’ will fill it up,” Emanuel said.
