A newly endowed chair at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC), and a Chicago cancer center administrator originally from Italy have made it possible to transform the state's Cancer Institute into a world-class program.

 

Shortly after accepting the post as director of UMC's Cancer Institute, Lucio Miele, MD, took steps to launch the institute's growth to national prominence.

 

"The long-term goal is to get (National Cancer Institute) designation," said Miele, MD, PhD, who plans to link basic science research, clinical trials, drug development and outpatient treatment – all into one location. "You need those elements to be taken seriously for funding by the NCI and to show patients why they'll be getting better care and cutting-edge treatments they wouldn't get in a community hospital setting."

 

Born in Naples, Italy, Miele earned his doctoral degree at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and his medical degree at the University of Naples, and worked with the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration on research, funding and drug development. Before his May arrival from Chicago, where he led Loyola University's Breast Cancer Program and served as associate cancer center director for translational science, Miele had begun assessing the building blocks available to craft a world-class cancer program at UMC.

 

Building blocks:

 

 

"The science for cardiovascular and cancer overlap substantially so there will be great synergy across these interest areas," said Dan Jones, MD, chancellor of the University of Mississippi.

 

Organizationally, Miele plans to fold a set of clinics under each main specialty of oncology, setting up each clinic with a cross section of disciplines for patients to receive comprehensive care and cutting-edge treatment. Staffing-wise, the institute plans to hire more oncologists and 40 to 50 investigators to maintain more than 100 clinical trials.

 

"Basic science research can't operate in a vacuum and clinical trials can't go on alone," Miele pointed out. "They've got to support each other within one institution."

 

The newly-endowed chair from Ergon makes the staffing additions possible and "extends (Ergon's) commitment to our community in a meaningful way," said Jones. "This gift allows us to recruit and retain world-class leaders to chart our course in cancer research."

 

Flowood-based Ergon is a privately owned company that includes a specialty-products oil refinery, ethanol plant, shipping operations and real estate development and management.

 

"We truly believe in what (UMC) does," said Kathy Stone, an Ergon Foundation board member and senior vice president and corporate officer of Ergon, Inc. "Very few people realize the importance of the institution to the state. We selected the Cancer Institute because we believe in it so strongly. And when I say we, I mean the 3,000-plus employees who make up the company. Without them, we wouldn't have a company, so the foundation takes in all of us."

 

The most prevalent cancers in Mississippi will remain top priority: breast, gynecological and prostate cancers common in African-American women and men, hematologic malignancies, pediatric oncology and hard-to-treat cancers like head and neck sarcomas, neurological, pancreatic and lung.

 

The institute could quickly become a hub of cancer research, diagnosis and treatment through collaboration with Mississippi institutions. Miele has already applied for NCI planning grants with counterparts at the University of Alabama, Tulane University, the University of South Florida's Moffitt Cancer Center and Emory University, which could fund a minority-focused tissue bank for researchers and a regional outreach and clinical-trial consortium.

 

"The easy things in cancer research have been done," he explained. "The hard things will only be done by coalitions."