Rutgers University has announced a $25 million gift from an anonymous donor in support of the Cancer Immunology and Metabolism Center of Excellence at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

The gift will support faculty recruitment, shared resource development, and research aimed at helping scientists more effectively deploy immunotherapies, a class of treatments that harness the body's own immune system to fight cancer. Sometimes regarded as the fourth pillar of cancer treatment — after surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy — the field has seen significant advances in recent years, though not all patients respond well. The gift will be used to develop clinical trials designed to uncover why some patients do not respond as well as others.

"As New Jersey's only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, Rutgers Cancer Institute has been at the forefront of developing and delivering immunotherapies, which are helping patients with previously untreatable cancers live longer or be cured altogether," said the center's director, Steven K. Libutti, who also serves as senior vice president of oncology services at RWJBarnabas Health and as vice chancellor, cancer programs, at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. "While there are great outcomes for many patients, we still strive to determine the basis for limited response rates in certain patients and how this can be improved. Through this transformational gift, we can leverage our expertise in the area of cancer metabolism to expand our efforts in immunology exploration, resulting in clinical trials and access to new and improved treatments."

(Photo credit: John O'Boyle)