The Harper Cancer Research Institute, 2011

2011 — today

Two faculties, one institute: South Bend's cancer research house was built as a partnership and opened with its building: the Mike and Josie Harper Cancer Research Institute launched in 2011 with the dedication that March of Harper Hall — 55,000 square feet of offices and laboratories at 1234 North Notre Dame Avenue, beside Raclin-Carmichael Hall — as a collaboration between the University of Notre Dame and the Indiana University School of Medicine—South Bend, with co-directors from each institution: Rudolph M. Navari, the medical school's director, as clinical director, and M. Sharon Stack of Notre Dame as science director. The money was matched halves: a $10 million contribution from the family foundation of Charles M. "Mike" Harper, a former South Bend resident and the retired chairman of ConAgra Foods, matched by a $10 million appropriation from the State of Indiana to Indiana University. The institute opened a tissue biorepository in 2012; in 2013 the co-director arrangement ended and Stack became sole director, the Ann F. Dunne and Elizabeth Riley Director, and she directs it still. Its documented scale a decade in was seventy-three affiliated faculty drawn from Notre Dame's colleges of science, engineering and arts and letters and from the medical school, in the state's 2021 life-sciences survey. The Walther Cancer Foundation, a funder, described the institute at its founding as Indiana's newest cancer research center, and the description is carried as the foundation's. Stack's own laboratory works on the molecular mechanisms of metastasis in epithelial ovarian cancer and oral squamous cell carcinoma; the institute's collective program is basic cancer biology aimed, in its charter language, at more effective treatments — a research program of the steady kind, printed at that size, its named discoveries those of the entries around it.

Sources:

1. BioCrossroads, Book of Data and Organizations (2021), Harper Cancer Research Institute profile — launched 2011 with the opening of Harper Hall as a Notre Dame–IU School of Medicine—South Bend collaboration with co-directors from each; the tissue biorepository of 2012; Stack promoted to director in 2013; seventy-three affiliated faculty.
2. Indiana University School of Medicine news (4 March 2011) — the dedication of Harper Hall, 55,000 square feet adjacent to Raclin-Carmichael Hall; the $10 million Harper family foundation contribution matched by the state's $10 million appropriation; Navari as the medical school's director and the institute's clinical director.
3. Walther Cancer Foundation, Harper Cancer Research Institute profile — founded 2011; "Indiana's newest cancer research center," carried as the foundation's description; Stack's directorship.
4. University of Notre Dame, College of Science news (2018) — Stack's laboratory investigating epithelial ovarian carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity, focused on the molecular mechanisms of metastasis.