The Skip Viragh Outpatient Cancer Building that’ll open in 2017 as part of Johns Hopkins’ Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Center will house the world’s first bladder cancer institute, thanks to a $15M donation from Greenberg Gibbons founder Erwin Greenberg and his wife, Stephanie Cooper Greenberg (above), as well as $30M from Johns Hopkins. Yesterday, Erwin and Stephanie told us they approached JHU about establishing the institute after learning it’s the most expensive cancer to treat (costs total $4B a year in the US) and that bladder cancer patients are extremely underserved, despite the fact that they know plenty of people struck by the disease. Their gift will establish the Johns Hopkins Greenberg Bladder Cancer Institute.
Erwin, who serves on Kimmel Center’s board, tells us 74,000 people in the US are diagnosed with bladder cancer each year and 15,000 will die from it (there are 330,000 known cases worldwide). Stephanie, who’s on the Johns Hopkins University Berman Institute of Bioethics board, says both she and her husband have problem-solving personalities (if you want to get them a gift, it sounds like they both would enjoy puzzles), and this first-ever hub of bladder cancer research has the potential to save thousands of lives. She says it’ll be a multidisciplinary organization and offer grants to doctors outside the institute, as well. The Greenberg Institute will open this year and operate in the Bunting Blaustein building until the Viragh Building opens.
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