UVA Cancer Center receives $5.75M donation

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - An anonymous gift of $5.75 million to the University of Virginia Cancer Center is going to the fight against rare blood cancers.

“There are some very special types of blood tumors that we don’t have treatments for now,” UVA Health CEO Craig Kent said Thursday, August 4. “If you’re one of those individuals that is affected by one of these really rare types of cancer, that there isn’t a lot of therapy that’s available for it.”

The person who donated this large sum is one of those individuals, and wants to help save others who are in the same fight.

“A couple of the cancers that this donor was particularly interested in are ones that are associated with what we call hematologic malignancies, or malignancies of the bone cells or the blood cells,” Kent said.

Kent says UVA Health will spend the money on new research and improving patient care.

“If we can, using these resources, create one new therapy, we’d be really proud,” Kent said. “Maybe we’ll actually create therapies for many types of cancers that currently are unable to be treated.”

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