Wilmot Cancer Institute, part of University of Rochester Medicine, is an National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center that has served Western and Central New York since 1974, reaching a population of more than three million people across 27 counties. The institute treats about 38,000 patients a year across 13 outpatient locations, and its flagship James P. Wilmot Cancer Center, an inpatient hospital on the university’s health sciences campus that houses one of the state’s largest blood and marrow transplant programs. Wilmot offers roughly 200 clinical trials spanning symptom management to drug treatments, supported by about $30 million in cancer research funding, and its research faculty of more than 125 scientists spans 26 academic departments at the University of Rochester. According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Wilmot scientists contributed to two of the top five cancer discoveries of the past 50 years: the HPV cervical cancer vaccine and pioneering anti-nausea therapies that help patients tolerate chemotherapy. The institute is one of two U.S. hubs for the National Cancer Institute’s community oncology research program, and operates the region’s first cancer survivorship clinic and one of the nation’s first geriatric oncology clinics. Wilmot also holds a leading position in lymphoma research, often leading the nation in clinical trial accruals and serving on the SWOG lymphoma committee, and it was among the first institutions to offer CAR T-cell therapy backed by ongoing research. The institute recently recruited prominent national physician-scientists to expand its advanced bladder cancer grants and clinical trials.
