The University of Michigan has announced gifts totaling $30 million to establish a research center dedicated to advancing treatments for children with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) and other pediatric brain cancers.

The Chad Carr Pediatric Brain Tumor Center at the University of Michigan will bring together experts from multiple specialties, including pediatrics, radiology and neurosurgery, radiation oncology, genetics, pathology, engineering, and public health to accelerate research on DIPG, one of the most aggressive and lethal types of brain tumor, as well as other pediatric brain cancers. The new center is named in honor of former U-M football coach Lloyd Carr's grandson Chad Carr, who died in 2015, fourteen months after being diagnosed with DIPG. While the field of pediatric cancer research has seen numerous breakthroughs in recent years, there has been little progress made against DIPG, with more than 90 percent of children diagnosed with the disease dying within eighteen months of diagnosis.

The funds raised are part of a larger $51.5 million campaign in support of fundamental scientific research programs focused on pediatric brain tumors and the development of infrastructure for clinical trials. Gifts for the Carr Center were received from thousands of donors across the country, including U-M regent Ron Weiser and Eileen Weiser, Wayne and Shelly Jones and the Jones Family Foundation, the Glick family and Alro Steel, the ChadTough Foundation, William and Sharon Stein, Frank and Barbara Westover, and David and Joan Evans.

"We are grateful for the generous gifts allowing us to honor Chad through transformational research that will help other children defeat this terrible disease," said Valerie Opipari, a pediatric oncologist and chair of the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at U-M's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. "This is a monumental milestone in our mission to conquer pediatric brain cancer."