University of Virginia Health System

This gift will help fuel an all-out assault on prostate cancer, said Dr. Robert M. Carey, dean of the U.Va. School of Medicine. We are deeply grateful for Mr. Mellon's generosity and inspired by his commitment to eradicate the most frequently occurring cancer in men.

Mellon's generosity was motivated by his gratitude for the care he received from Dr. Jay Gillenwater, a U.Va. professor and former chairman of the urology department, as well as by the strength of the prostate cancer program, according to the executors of the estate. The gift will be used to establish the Mellon Prostate Cancer Research Institute, which will be co-directed by Dr. William Steers, chairman of the Department of Urology at the University, and microbiologist Michael Weber, director of the U.Va. Cancer Center.

Prostate cancer accounts for one of every three cancers among American men, according to the National Cancer Institute. Although early detection and improved treatments have prompted a significant decline in the death rate from this disease, little is understood about the cause of prostate cancer.

According to Steers, the goal of the Mellon Institute will be to understand how and why the disease strikes some men and not others, to determine who is likely to have cancers that need aggressive treatment, and to discover therapies to prevent the onset or progression of the disease.

As part of the institute, a functional genomics program will be created to identify the genes involved in prostate cancer and to determine their function and relationship to clinical outcomes. Recruitment of four new researchers to complement ongoing research efforts (see backgrounder) will begin immediately, Weber said.

The University has been the beneficiary of Mr. Mellon's thoughtful philanthropy on a number of occasions, said University President John T. Casteen III. This gift to the School of Medicine shows again his personal devotion to contributing to the common good. His generosity will help to assure that cutting-edge research at the University will push ahead a possible cure for prostate cancer.

Mellon was widely known and admired in the worlds of philanthropy, art, environmental protection and education. He was the son of Andrew W. Mellon (1855-1937), the financier, longtime Secretary of the Treasury and art collector, whose renowned collection formed the nucleus of the National Gallery in Washington. The Mellons' total contributions to museums and other causes, which include the restoration of Monticello, has been estimated at nearly a billion dollars. Paul Mellon died in 1999.

September 8, 2000