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Governor, Storey family dedicate research building at Georgia Cancer Center

Augusta Chronicle - 12/4/2018

Dec. 04--Before it was dedicated Monday, pediatric oncologist Ted Johnson walked Sunday through the connector over Laney-Walker Boulevard between the clinic building of Georgia Cancer Center and the M. Bert Storey Research Building where his lab is located at Augusta University.

"It's a literal bridge and a figurative bridge between the science and the clinic," said Johnson, who helped Dr. David Munn and others take a breakthrough lab discovery and turn it into a treatment for brain tumors that is bringing in children from around the country and internationally as well.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal and many members of the Storey family were on hand to dedicate the $62.5 million addition and update, which includes the multistory connector over the street as well as 22,000-square feet of new lab space that will allow the university to recruit nearly two dozen new researchers. That will help push the cancer center toward designation by the National Cancer Institute, becoming the second in Georgia, said Medical College of Georgia Dean David Hess.

"This is going to propel us to NCI designation," he said.

One of the motivations Storey had in giving the leadership gift that led to raising $12.5 million in philanthropic support for the building began 16 years ago after his wife was diagnosed with a rare form of thyroid cancer and she was taken to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for treatment, said their son, Barry.

"Often during our visits to Texas, my father would say, 'One day we will have available treatment in Augusta, Ga., so we can stay home rather than seek treatment" elsewhere, he said. Storey died from complications from prostate cancer in April at age 88.

"He was very very proud of our accomplishments here in Augusta, of this new facility, but more so he had such a positive outlook on what lies ahead for this cancer center in Augusta," Barry Storey said.

Deal, whose efforts led to the more than $100 million Georgia Cyber Center on AU's Riverfront Campus, shares that optimism for the cancer center as well.

"This is going to be one of those other hallmarks that is going to make Augusta one of the most important cities in the state of Georgia," he said. And Deal, whose wife battled breast cancer earlier this year, had a similar message for the dozens of doctors and clinicians standing in white lab coats around the edges of the ceremony.

"Just remember that what you do, even though you may not see the faces of the patients and may not be introduced to their families, what you do and the success of what you do will have huge impacts on them nevertheless," he said.

All of that will be easier with a building that is physically connected and makes it easier for a research colleague to pop his head into a clinician's office and run an idea by her or vice versa, without the physical constraints of leaving a building and dodging traffic or the weather, said Munn, whose discovery of the pivotal role of the IDO enzyme and its role in evading the immune system led to the treatment Johnson now administers. It has been 20 years since that first breakthrough, and nearly that long since he and Johnson helped to define how cancer uses it to evade the immune system, but the setup now at the cancer center to take something from the lab to clinic is much better, Munn said.

"We've got the infrastructure to implement the clinical trials in house," where before they collaborated with larger programs elsewhere, he said. "If you really want to move something forward, you do it by the people who are the most committed and excited about the discovery. That bench to bedside really needs to be in-house, not halfway across the country, to get it implemented."

No one knows that better than Cindy Gauldin. She was diagnosed in August 2016 with stage 4 ovarian cancer that had spread to her lungs and after standard chemotherapy has taken an experimental cancer vaccine, two other clinical trials and benefited from a drug that was fast-tracked for approval.

"I take a drug until the cancer breaks through, and then move on to the next drug or clinical trial, potentially buying time with each additional treatment protocol," Gauldin said. She calls the connector between the clinic where she is treated and the building where researchers work on potential new therapies "the bridge of chances," with each chance "offering the blessing of continued life. A heartfelt thank you to the Storey family for the gift that will continue to give and provide chances for all cancer patients."

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