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Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center To Receive $16 Million Per Year

Patrick Farrell
/
Miami Herald staff

  In Gov. Rick Scott's budget, the Legislature approved $60 million of annual funding for three cancer centers in Florida. One of the centers, the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami School of Medicine, will receive $16 million per year for five years.

Even before the funding the center made investments including hiring new physicians and researchers, and purchasing new equipment.

As Dr. Stephen Nimer says, the new personnel and machines help make the center "world class."

"We've purchased machines that allow you to look at individual cancer cells," he explains. "So instead of taking a tumor out and having to just look at a million cells, you can take each cell out and look at one cell at a time and identify some of the complexity of cancer that was previously not apparent."

The Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer center hopes to gain a National Cancer Institute designation. Currently, there is only one National Cancer Institute in the state, in Tampa. 

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