Former Senator donates $1.5 million in son's honor
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 09/26/2007
sponsored by
The parents of Robert Wallace Miller hope their $1.5 million gift to the Purdue Cancer Center will help keep the memory of their son alive.
Former Ind. Sen. V. Richard "Dick" Miller and his wife, Jane Miller, made the donation in honor of their late son, "Robbie," who succumbed to a rare form of cancer in 1976.
He was 11 years old.
"The doctor couldn't figure out what was wrong with him," said Dick Miller, who earned his bachelor's degree in science from Purdue in 1963. "In October, he stopped breathing, and we couldn't revive him."
A fast-growing, highly malignant tumor attached itself to the muscle tissue in Robbie's chest, which caused him to suffocate. Since then, the couple has sought ways to fight cancers of all kinds.
In 1995, the Millers established the Robbie Chair at the Indiana University Cancer Center. Dick Miller is also a former member of the Purdue Cancer Center's Director's Advisory Board.
"We want people to be in the preventative mode as well as a cure mode," Dick Miller said. "We hoped this gift would provide the brain power to be able to hire the best of the best and attack these diseases the best way we can."
Cancer Center director Timothy Ratliff said the gift will help attract top scientists who he hopes will be able to develop new technology and therapeutics in bladder cancer research.
Ratliff said there are more than 60,000 new cases of bladder cancer in the U.S. every year. He estimates that the cancer takes the lives of 13,000 to 14,000 people annually.
"The Millers' donation and donations like this by people who generously support cancer research allow us to investigate new and novel ideas," Ratliff said. "But the idea has to be developed before we can get funding from government agencies."
Ratliff said leading scientists in nanotechnology and cancer research have to generate large amounts of data before they can be competitive for more significant grants. But with increasing support from people like the Millers, he said, survival rates for cancer continue to improve.
"We are making a difference."