Hospital Breaks Ground for Comprehensive Cancer Center

    Future facility called 'shot in the arm' for
    Oncology Dept.

More than 750 dignitaries, leaders and supporters of the
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions attended last week's
groundbreaking ceremony for a new, comprehensive cancer
center. A reception followed at the future Hopkins subway
station at the corner of Broadway and Jefferson streets.
       The center, which is scheduled to open in late 1997,
will expand existing clinical and research space and bring
under one roof many of the departments involved in the
treatment of cancer patients.
     James Block, president of Johns Hopkins Hospital and
Johns Hopkins Health System, said the cancer center is a
result of an array of partnerships, and thanked
representatives from JHMI, the university, local, state and
federal governments and the National Institutes of Health.
     Dr. Block also noted the hospital's fourth consecutive
rating as best in the nation by U.S. News and World Report
and said he was confident the new facility would be the "No.
1 cancer center in the United States." 
      "The Cancer Center is an enormous shot in the arm for
our oncology faculty and for related faculty in such crucial
areas as pathology and radiology," said Michael Johns, dean
of the School of Medicine. "With new facilities, and new
state-of-the-art equipment, and most of all world-class
space, our faculty can get about their business of moving
science from the lab bench to the bedside. Nobody does it
better."
    University President William Richardson praised the
combined efforts of hospital and university. 
    "I can think of no more apt or fitting monument to the
work these two great institutions have already accomplished
than this new building, devoted to improving diagnosis,
refining treatment and one day discovering a cure to one of
the few remaining great pestilences known to modern man," Dr.
Richardson said. "I look forward to the time when we may open
the doors of this new building to help the residents of
Baltimore, of Maryland and, in a larger sense, of all
humankind in the battle against cancer."
    The center is being funded by a $30.5 million state
initiative and by private support. The subway station is
expected to open next year.