Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Lombardi Receives Record Donation

The Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center received a $9.6 million donation, the largest in the center’s history, the university announced yesterday.

The gift came from the estate of philanthropist Charlotte G. Gragnani, who died on Feb. 25, 2004, at the age of 91. Gragnani’s husband, the late Francis L. Gragnani, was treated for cancer at Georgetown. She donated $5 million to the center in 1998 to endow the Francis L. and Charlotte Gragnani Chair in Oncology.

“We are deeply gratified by Mrs. Gragnani’s gift,” Richard Pestell, director of the Cancer Center, said in a press release. “She wanted to find a cure for cancer and felt like this was the place where it could happen.”

Current research projects at the cancer center include research in nanotechnology, prostate cancer prevention and a biomedical informatics grid that aims to create an emerging “world wide web of cancer research – a technological feat that is expected to revolutionize the way that cancer research is conducted in the United States and around the globe,” Amy DeMaria, edical Center spokeswoman, said.

The center also opened a Capital Breast Care Center to serve inner-city Washington, D.C., last April.

“Mrs. Gragnani was confident that current and future research, including that at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, offered real promise of prevention, improved treatment and even cure of cancers,” Stuart Bondurant, interim executive vice president for health sciences, said in the release. “Her generous bequest will help to realize this vision.”

Gragnani, born Sept. 27, 1912, in Lanham, Md., became a medical secretary and met her husband while on assignment in Japan. They married in 1954. Gragnani was a member of Saint Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church in Hyattsville, Md.

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