Lute Olson donates $1 million to cancer center
Summary:
University of Arizona basketball coach and local celebrity Lute Olson announced that his family has donated $1 million to the Arizona Cancer Center in memory of his first wife Bobbi Olson, who died from ovarian cancer in 2001.
Full Story:
University of Arizona basketball coach and local celebrity Lute Olson announced that his family has donated $1 million to the Arizona Cancer Center in memory of his first wife Bobbi Olson, who died from ovarian cancer in 2001.
The $1 million gift is an effort to spark the cancer center's $50 million fundraising campaign to aid the treatment of cancer in women, according to the Arizona Daily Star.
The Olson's contribution will go to the Bobbi Olson Endowment for Ovarian Cancer, where it will be used to hire clinicians and researchers for the center, the Star reported. The center hopes to eventually build a second building exclusively for women's cancers.
Researchers at the center have discovered cancer inhibitors at the molecular level that hold some promise for limiting the spread of ovarian cancer, which is only detected after it has spread from its point of origin. They also are working on techniques to better predict women who are at-risk of the disease.
Dr. David Alberts, director of the Cancer Center and Bobbi Olson's oncologist, called the center "an oasis" for women to get treated where ovarian cancer will eventually be cured and prevented.
"We have some of the very, very top (cancer) people in the world right here in Tucson," Olson said in the announcement. "You talk about an oasis on the desert - the Arizona Cancer Center is in fact that."
For more information:
"Olson to fund cancer research," Arizona Daily Star, 01/25/2005