NIU plans cutting-edge cancer center

World-class facility in DuPage County will conduct research, offer proton therapy

West Chicago, Ill. — NIU today announced plans to build a world-class cancer treatment and research center in Chicago’s western suburbs that will provide state-of-the-art proton therapy to patients across the Midwest.

The university has received $3.3 million in federal funding to begin formal planning for a non-profit proton therapy center at the DuPage National Technology Park in West Chicago. The park is contiguous to the northern boundary of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which in the late 1980s developed the first proton-therapy accelerator for use in cancer treatment.

Proton therapy is an advanced, highly effective form of radiation treatment, utilizing proton beams to treat cancer. Non-invasive and painless, it is a preferred treatment in many adult and pediatric cancers. Although the treatment is covered by numerous insurance plans, it is currently unavailable in Illinois.

“The proton therapy center will be a major resource for cancer patients in the Chicago area, Illinois and the Midwest,” NIU President John Peters said. “The center will also establish the state as a worldwide leader in cancer treatment and research using particle accelerator technologies that were pioneered right here in Illinois.”

U.S. Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert, whose district includes the proposed site for the NIU proton therapy center, helped secure planning funds for the facility.

“While thousands of patients have realized the benefits of this cancer treatment, proton therapy is currently unavailable in Illinois,” Hastert said. “Yet this advanced technology was realized at Fermilab. The NIU plan, in a real sense, will bring this resource back home to Illinois.”

The university now is seeking state and federal funds to cover roughly half of the estimated $120 million project cost. Other funding is expected from private equity financing, private sector partners and NIU bonds.

Once funding is secured, the university will break ground in 2008 on a facility with four separate treatment rooms and dedicated research space in a complex totaling about 100,000 square feet of space on 13 acres of tech-park land. Plans call for the center to begin providing treatments in 2011 with an eventual patient load of about 1,500 patients per year.

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