Through the generous support of Stanley Berman and his late wife Eileen Berman, EdD, UMass Medical School has established the Dr. Eileen L. Berman and Stanley I. Berman Foundation Chair in Biomedical Research, supported through an endowed fund that the Bermans created at the UMass Medicine Cancer Center of Excellence in 2011, UMMS Chancellor Michael F. Collins announced. Dale Greiner, PhD, professor of molecular medicine, will be the inaugural recipient.
Eileen and Stanley Berman's support of UMMS grew out of personal experience with cancer care and a deep love of Worcester. After Dr. Berman received cancer treatment at the Cancer Center in 2010, she and her husband wanted to give back to an institution and a city that had given them so much. They chose to establish an endowed fund that focuses on early detection and prevention initiatives. Prior to Dr. Berman’s passing on April 7 from cancer, wanting to do more, the Berman family recently announced that their fund would be expanded to endow a chair whose primary goal is to explore and develop pioneering therapeutic advances. The focus during the chair's first five years will be to stimulate innovative research in appendiceal cancer, the disease that Eileen battled for four years.
