Gift of $5M From Leonard A. Lauder to Advance Research in Ovarian Cancer
Posted: Friday, November 8, 2019
The Chairman Emeritus of The Estée Lauder Companies has made a $5 million gift to the University of Arizona Cancer Center. The gift from Leonard A. Lauder supports the clinical and translational research of David S. Alberts, MD, an expert in the field of ovarian cancer research and treatment. Instrumental in founding the Cancer Center in 1976, Dr. Alberts built its Cancer Prevention and Control Program into a respected gynecologic cancer and biomarker research effort. His National Cancer Institute–funded drug and diagnostics research has resulted in 18 patents and the co-founding of four Arizona-based pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
“Curing ovarian cancer has been my guiding light for more than 45 years,” stated Dr. Alberts.
Dr. Alberts pioneered new treatments in advanced ovarian cancers, including in vitro tumor cell chemosensitivity testing for personalized medicine strategies, intraperitoneal chemotherapy, and maintenance chemotherapy. It was this expertise that brought Dr. Alberts to the attention of Mr. Lauder, whose mother was Estée Lauder. Mr. Lauder’s wife, businesswoman and philanthropist Evelyn H. Lauder, died of ovarian cancer in 2011.
“For more than 40 years, Dr. Alberts and his research team have been at the forefront of discovering how to prevent cancer at the molecular level through targeted drug interventions, as well as how to predict when intraepithelial neoplasias will become invasive cancers in various tissues,” said Michael D. Dake, MD, Senior Vice President of the University of Arizona Health Sciences. “This generous gift from Mr. Lauder is vital to furthering those efforts, which we fully expect will create new pathways for precision treatments and, eventually, a cure for ovarian cancer.”
