The Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (“MSK”) was established in 2006. The Geoffrey Beene Foundation (and until 2018, Geoffrey Beene LLC), has funded over 140 separate new revolutionary research initiatives across all cancers to develop new treatments for cancer patients.

G. Thompson (“Tom”) Hutton, the Trustee of the Geoffrey Beene Foundation and President and CEO of Geoffrey Beene, LLC, (until 2018) initiated the creation of the Center primarily for the purpose of funding new revolutionary research leading to new treatments for cancer patients and orchestrated the activities to build and support this ambitious research initiative. “The hallmark of the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center at MSK is its focus on revolutionary new research approaches across a variety of cancers, strategies that will lead to prevention through improved diagnostics and enhanced quality of life treatments toward the ultimate goal of making cancer a more manageable and perhaps one day, a curable disease” said Harold Varmus, M.D. Nobel Laureate and former CEO of MSK and former Director of the National Institute of Health and the National Cancer Institute.

Since its creation, the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center has served as the focal point at MSK for an array of projects, aimed at translating works at the cellular level into revolutionary new research approaches to preventing, diagnosing, and treating the disease. It brings together researchers and physicians from two complementary areas: the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program, based in the Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI), which studies the genetic and biochemical events that trigger the transformation of normal cells into cancerous ones, and the Memorial Hospital-based Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, which pursues new insights into the molecular mechanisms of cancer from the perspective of clinical oncology.

Read the 2007-2017 Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center 10 Year Report.

Read the 2012-13 Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center Progress Report.

“The Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center has helped galvanize our efforts to gain new insights into cancer and to apply that knowledge to the development of more effective strategies for patient care,” said Harold Varmus. “We are especially grateful to Tom Hutton and his colleagues at Geoffrey Beene for recognizing the significance of the work being done here” said Harold Varmus.

The Geoffrey Beene Foundation supports advanced new research initiatives spanning the entire range of translational research, funding core research labs, the establishment of senior and junior faculty chairs, graduate fellowships, the annual Geoffrey Beene Symposium, and the annual Geoffrey Beene Research Retreat. The Center provides support for the Geoffrey Beene Translational Oncology Core, directed by Dr. Charles Sawyers. The core performs genomic analyses of clinical material by applying state of the art genome-scale molecular profiling technologies.

The Center provides support for the Geoffrey Beene Translational Oncology Core, directed by Dr. Charles Sawyers. The core performs genomic analyses of clinical material by applying state of the art genome-scale molecular profiling technologies. Geoffrey Beene salutes Dr. Sawyers for the extraordinary accomplishment of winning the prestigious 2009 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award. His award is based on the development of molecularly-targeted treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia, converting a fatal cancer into a manageable chronic condition.

The Center also provides support for the Microchemistry and Proteomics Core Facility and Genomics Core Facility, both of which are aimed at significantly augmenting Memorial Sloan Kettering’s capacity for translational cancer research in genomics.

Since 2006, 140 grants have been awarded and 16 proposals for shared resources have been funded. Each grant funds initial-stage research and is renewed for a second year. Each year the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center’s Executive Committee reviews submissions of innovative research proposals. This highly competitive review process awards grants to the most compelling and profound ideas proposed by researchers from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center community. After completion of the funded project, grant recipients have gone on to develop their novel ideas and apply for further grants from external sources. Since 2006, for every dollar of direct support from the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center, grant awardees received an additional $1.44 in follow-up funding from external sources based on the early-stage ideas supported by the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center.

Oversight of The Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center is provided by an Executive Committee. Scott Lowe, PhD, Member in the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program (CBG) serves as chair to the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center. David Solit, MD, Director of the Center for Molecular Oncology and Member of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program (HOPP) was appointed Geoffrey Beene Senior Chair in 2013. Nikolaus Schultz, PhD, Associate Attending in Epidemiology-Biostatistics, is currently appointed to Geoffrey Beene Junior Faculty Chairs. Ross Levine, MD, Member in HOPP, and Andrea Ventura, Member in CBG, Ping Chi, MD, PhD, Associate Member in HOPP, Alan Ho, MD, Associate Attending in Medicine, and Joseph Sun, PhD, Member in the Immunology Program have previously held the Geoffrey Beene Jr. Chair. Since the establishment of the center, forty Geoffrey Beene Graduate Fellowships have been awarded. Support has also been provided for the Geoffrey Beene Translational Research Core Facility, the Microchemistry and Proteomics Core Facility, the Genomics Core Facility, High-Throughput Drug Screening Facility, and the RNAi Core Facility, and the Antitumor Assessment Core. Since 2007, a total of one hundred and forty research grants and sixteen shared resource grants have been funded. Throughout the year, the Center sponsors several events that foster interactions between clinicians and basic researchers in an effort to encourage translational research relationships. This is the thirteenth annual retreat attended by CBG, HOPP, and faculty members across the institution.