Health Science Center President Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., visits with CTRC Nutritionist Barbara Swanson, CTRC Director Tyler J. Curiel, M.D., M.P.H., and Mary Jackson, director of CTRC Patient and Family Services, at a taco breakfast welcoming CTRC employees to the Health Science Center family.
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Contact: Will Sansom, 210-567-2579

SAN ANTONIO (Dec. 20, 2007) – The Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC), located in San Antonio, Texas, this month became a center of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The University of Texas System Board of Regents, meeting Dec. 6 in Austin, authorized the acquisition of the CTRC by the Health Science Center. The merger took effect Dec. 17.

The cancer center is now named the Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. The CTRC at the UT Health Science Center is a patient care, research and educational center of the Health Science Center School of Medicine.

San Antonio Cancer Institute name to be discontinued
Before the merger, the two institutions were partners in the San Antonio Cancer Institute, one of the three National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Centers in Texas. The San Antonio Cancer Institute name has been discontinued. The CTRC at the UT Health Science Center is now the NCI-designated Cancer Center.

Drs. Curiel and Giles named directors
Tyler J. Curiel, M.D., M.P.H., an internationally known medical oncologist and cancer researcher, has been named director of the cancer center. Frank Giles, M.D., M.B., FRCPI, FRCPath, has been promoted to deputy director of the cancer center and continues as director of the CTRC Institute for Drug Development and experimental therapeutics program.

Marj Godfrey, Southwest Oncology Group assistant vice president for operations, receives a T-shirt from Jacquelyn Pfeiffer and Janet Goebel from the UT Health Science Center’s event planning office. The Health Science Center welcomed SWOG and Institute for Drug Development employees at a reception Dec. 17 at the Texas Research Park.

Strong partnership continues with merger
“As historically strong partners, the Health Science Center and the CTRC provided quality patient care, research and prevention, and other educational efforts to South Texas and the state,” said Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., president of the UT Health Science Center. “Now as we welcome the CTRC into our Health Science Center family, we possess a bold, singular vision for the future — development of an even greater world-premier cancer center that, backed by the power of academic research discovery, provides better lives to cancer patients and their families.”

The CTRC at the UT Health Science Center serves more than 4.4 million people in the high-growth corridor of South and Central Texas, including San Antonio, Austin, Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley. It handles more than 120,000 patient visits each year.

“The mission of the CTRC at the UT Health Science Center is to promote interdisciplinary research in cancer-related areas of basic science, clinical research, and cancer prevention and control, and to foster the application of the results of that research in the community setting, especially in the South Texas community,” Dr. Curiel said.

IDD is an internationally recognized Phase I cancer clinical research program
The CTRC Institute for Drug Development (IDD) is internationally recognized for conducting the largest oncology Phase I clinical research studies program in the world. In a Phase I research study, a new agent for cancer is tested in human patients for the first time. Fifteen of the cancer drugs most recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration underwent development or testing at the IDD.

“Our Phase I teams are conducting clinical research studies of agents that promise to change the way many forms of cancer are treated,” Dr. Curiel said.

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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $576 million and 5,000 faculty and staff, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $15.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to seven campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. The Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at the UT Health Science Center is one of the San Antonio campuses. The CTRC Institute for Drug Development is located on the Texas Research Park Campus, also in San Antonio. More than 22,000 Health Science Center graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields.