On Mar. 29, 2016, Johns Hopkins University announced gifts totaling $125 million to create a cancer research institute dedicated to the study of immunotherapy. Launched with gifts of $50 million each from Bloomberg Philanthropies founder Michael R. Bloomberg and Kimmel Foundation founder Sidney Kimmel, as well as $25 million from more than a dozen other donors, the Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy will focus on one of the most promising and rapidly advancing approaches to cancer treatment.

Immunotherapy has the potential to cure and end all forms of cancer, researchers say, making it the most rapidly advancing approach to cancer treatment and one of the most promising avenues of cancer research today. Immunotherapy seeks to redirect patients’ highly individual immune systems to target, detect, and destroy cancer cells.

The institute will further strengthen Johns Hopkins’ world-class program in cancer immunology, uniting the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center experts with the immunology, genetics, microbiology, and biomedical engineering experts throughout Johns Hopkins in a concentrated effort involving more than 100 scientists and clinicians.