Beneficiary

Proceeds from Treads & Threads 2024 will support a new global destination cancer center building for transformational cancer research and patient care at The University of Kansas Cancer Center. The cancer center is the region’s only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center. Our new cancer center building will not only save more lives but will change more lives and our community for the better.

The new cancer center building will bring together expanded cancer patient care and research in one place. By transforming our approach to research and patient care we will be able to provide leading-edge treatments to our patients. Patients will have access to more innovative clinical trials and groundbreaking therapies developed on-site. Labs and researchers, which are currently scattered across multiple campuses in the Kansas City metro area and Lawrence, Kansas, will be able to collaborate in real-time with physicians on personalized treatment options, making them more quickly available to patients.

Cancer center leaders have long envisioned uniting the entire cancer community – from physician-scientists to researchers to physicians and clinical staff – under 1 roof. The planned state-of-the-art cancer center building does this, and in the process will inspire spontaneous and serendipitous collaboration, which often leads to fresh, new thinking needed to solve cancer’s most complex puzzles. The new building will be located on the 39th and Rainbow campus, with construction slated to begin in fall 2024.

The University of Kansas Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute (NCI) designated comprehensive cancer center in the region and one of fewer than 60 in the United States to receive this elite designation. NCI-designated cancer centers are recognized for pioneering the most groundbreaking advances in cancer treatment through scientific discovery and transformative patient care. It is the gold standard of excellence, awarded only to cancer centers with the deepest and broadest knowledge of cancer. Patients treated at an NCI-designated cancer center have a 25% greater chance of survival. Today, The University of Kansas Cancer Center’s clinical spaces and research facilities span Kansas and Missouri. We will continue to treat patients across the region in those community care centers. And at the same time, the new cancer center building will centralize world-class care and innovation by allowing the whole patient care experience to occur in one location, creating a more seamless experience for our patients and their families.