The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and its clinical counterpart, the UPMC Cancer Centers, have announced a $20 million gift from the Pittsburgh-based Henry L. Hillman and Hillman foundations to create the Hillman Fellows Program for Innovative Cancer Research.

The Hillman Fellows Program will provide "seed" money or venture capital for scientists, stimulating new collaborations and supporting novel ideas from junior and senior investigators. Those investments, in turn, can be parlayed into more substantial funding from external sources such as the National Cancer Institute to help find new and innovative methods to prevent and treat cancer. The gift launches a major initiative to raise $200 million for the institute to recruit new investigators, invest in new facilities, and create scientific and economic advantages for the region and the state.

"In its relatively short history, UPCI has become one of the country's most important contributors to basic, translational, and clinical cancer research," said Henry Hillman, whom the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review describes as a "billionaire industrialist." "This initiative will provide new opportunities for Pittsburgh researchers to translate laboratory findings into effective prevention and treatment approaches for cancer patients, helping us to transform cancer from a deadly disease into one that can be managed and ultimately defeated."

Less than three years old, the Hillman Cancer Center is the flagship facility for the UPMC Cancer Centers, a network of forty-three office-based medical oncology practices and regional cancer centers that provides care for cancer patients throughout western Pennsylvania. It is also home to the research activities of the UP Cancer Institute and includes more than four hundred and fifty research faculty and staff. "We hope to bring in another hundred cancer researchers over the next few years," Dr. Ronald Herberman, director of both UPCI and the UPMC Cancer Centers, told the Tribune-Review.