THE WORK GOES ON. Northern collaborates with Northwestern.

NIU has named Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation as its expected provider of clinical services for the $160 million proton therapy cancer treatment and research center to be built in the DuPage National Technology Park in Chicago’s western suburbs.

On the heels of the Feb. 26 announcement naming the expected service provider, the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board in Chicago gave its approval for the project to proceed.

“We are here today in that spirit of hope and with constant focus on our mission,” NIU President John Peters said at the facilities planning board meeting. “This facility will stand in testament to our mission as a world class-educational, research and now, cancer treatment center.”

NIU Board of Trustees Chair Cherilyn G. Murer hailed the collaboration with Northwestern, saying that NIU’s expertise in advanced accelerator physics and engineering, coupled with the world-class cancer treatment experience of doctors from the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation in Chicago, would make NIU’s proton treatment center the best in the world.

“Our anticipated collaboration with Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation speaks to the high caliber of our endeavor,” Murer said.

“While patient focus will be our primary objective, the incredible byproducts we will offer through education and research in the form of medical, scientific and technology protocols will work to advance the human condition across the globe,” she added. “Ours will be far more than a community proton center to treat cancer. We envision the NIU facility as a regional and even national resource complemented through NIU’s work with Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratories, both world leaders in accelerator physics, neutron and proton therapies.”

The center will be the sixth proton therapy clinic in the U.S.