A cancer researcher at Queen's University has given the school a huge boost. Dr. Elizabeth Eisenhauer, director of the Investigational New Drug Program at the Queen's-based National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) Clinical Trials Group, is donating $2.5 million for a new research chair and a further $1.3 million toward a new Cancer Research Institute on the Queen's campus.
The Edith Eisenhauer Chair in Clinical Cancer Research is named after Eisenhauer's mother, who died of breast cancer in 1970. “My mother showed me the importance of contributing and making a difference,” says her daughter.
The holder of the new chair will also serve as director of the NCIC Clinical Trials Group, while the new institute will house under one roof the 3 NCIC units: the Clinical Trials Group, the Queen's Cancer Research Laboratories and the Radiation Oncology Research Unit. Together, these 3 groups receive more than $15 million a year in research funding.
“We'd been talking for some time about coming together,” says Eisenhauer. “This will give us some desperately needed new space. My donation is an opportunity to increase the scope of cancer research and recognize the unique mix of expertise that we have at Queen's.”
Queen's does not discuss the source of gifts beyond identifying the donor, but Eisenhauer's donation is widely acknowledged to be a dividend from the university's protection of the intellectual property rights of its researchers.