One block at a time

Miele launches decade-long plan to build NCI-designated cancer program

Around the corner from his seventh-floor office atop the new Arthur C. Guyton Research Center, Dr. Lucio Miele has a view halfway to Meridian.

A month into his new job as director of the Medical Center’s Cancer Institute, Miele’s plans span just as far.

“The long-term goal is to get (National Cancer Institute) designation. That’s a 10-year goal,” he said.

Miele plans to link basic science research, clinical trials, drug development and outpatient treatment all into one location.

“You need those elements to be taken seriously for funding by the NCI and to show patients why they’ll be getting better care and cutting-edge treatments they wouldn’t get in a community hospital setting.”

Before his May arrival from Chicago, where he led Loyola University’s Breast Cancer Program and served as associate cancer center director for translational science, Miele saw in UMMC building blocks for a world-class cancer program.

Those include ambulatory care and clinical trials already established at the 6-year-old Cancer Institute, housed in the Jackson Medical Mall Thad Cochran Center.

The Ergon Foundation, a non-profit spin-off of Ergon, Inc., endowed the institute’s Ergon Chair with a $2.11 million gift when Miele arrived. Another major building block, the gift will back researcher salaries and administrative expenses.

And UMMC’s cardiovascular research prowess, though mature in its own right, will help build the Cancer Institute, said Dr. Dan Jones, University of Mississippi Chancellor.

“The science for cardiovascular and cancer overlap substantially so there will be great synergy across these interest areas,” Jones said.

Organizationally, Miele wants a set of clinics under each main specialty of oncology. Each clinic would staff with a cross section of disciplines so patients would receive comprehensive care and cutting-edge treatment.

“Basic science research can’t operate in a vacuum and clinical trials can’t go on alone; they’ve got to support each other within one institution,” Miele said. “The cancers that are most prevalent in Mississippi are going to be a priority: breast, gynecological and prostate cancers common in African-American women and men, hematologic malignancies, pediatric oncology and hard-to-treat cancers like head and neck sarcomas, neurological, pancreatic and lung.”

Miele figures the institute needs several more oncologists and 40 to 50 investigators and should maintain more than 100 clinical trials.

By collaborating with Mississippi institutions, he hopes to create a hub of cancer research, diagnosis and treatment.

Already he’s applied for NCI planning grants along with counterparts at the University of Alabama, Tulane University, the University of South Florida’s Moffitt Cancer Center and Emory University. Those grants could fund a minority-focused tissue bank for researchers and a regional outreach and clinical-trial consortium.

No one institution – however big – can tackle all aspects of cancer, Miele said.

“The easy things in cancer research have been done. The hard things will only be done by coalitions,” he said.

Originally from Naples, Italy, Miele earned his Ph.D. at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and his M.D. at the University of Naples. Positions with the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration give him experience with research, funding and drug development.

In Mississippi, he and his wife, Carolyn, are buying in Terry, where they’ll have land for their horses, a passion the Mieles share. Their youngest child, Caroline, turns 12 in August; Margaret, their middle child, is getting a degree in animal behavior; and Charlie, their eldest, is a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Jones said Ergon’s gift reflects the improvements the company has been making in Mississippians’ lives for years.

“The gift from their foundation extends their commitment to our community in a meaningful way. And this gift allows us to recruit and retain world-class leaders to chart our course in cancer research,” he said.

Flowood-based Ergon is a privately owned company that includes a specialty-products oil refinery, ethanol plant, shipping operations and real estate development and management.

“We truly believe in what the Medical Center does,” said Kathy Stone, an Ergon Foundation board member and senior vice president, secretary and treasurer of Ergon, Inc. “Very few people realize the importance of the institution to the state.

“We selected the cancer institute because we believe in it so strongly. And when I say we, I mean the 3,000-plus employees who make up the company. Without them, we wouldn’t have a company, so the foundation takes in all of us.”

-Jack Mazurak

2009-07-13 00:00:00 18950