Two new buildings to serve UT Southwestern’s ongoing growth in the high-priority areas of brain research and cancer patient care were celebrated at a groundbreaking June 4 on North Campus.

The Outpatient Cancer Care Tower of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Research Tower of the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute are expected to open in the fall of 2022.

The two nine-story buildings – approximately 300,000 square feet each – will stand adjacent to the C. Kern Wildenthal Research Building (NL Building), which is located on the North Campus at 6000 Harry Hines Blvd. They will be physically connected on some floors, with the O’Donnell Research Tower also adjoined to NL, allowing staff to easily move among the three buildings.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, UT Southwestern President Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky spoke to donors, administrators, clinicians, researchers, and supporters gathered under a canopy outside the NL Building. We’re here to begin the next great project on the UT Southwestern campus – buildings that will expand our ability to respond to those in need of cancer care. Our researchers, working with learners, will also be able to make discoveries to improve the treatment, cure, and prevention of all the forms of brain disease that affect 50 million Americans, he said.

He thanked event attendee Annette Simmons and her late husband, Dallas businessman Harold C. Simmons, for longtime, generous support that has furthered cancer research and care at UT Southwestern. He also thanked Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. for their decades of giving and generosity to help launch the O’Donnell Brain Institute to advance brain science. When it was time to lift the shovels of soil, Annette Simmons and Mr. O’Donnell were called on to share in the moment.

The Research Tower will help UT Southwestern attract the best and the brightest research talent, top-flight faculty, and the most outstanding Ph.D. students in the country, said Dr. Joseph Takahashi, Chair of Neuroscience. More space means we can take on more projects and discoveries, he told the crowd, and unite researchers, faculty, students, and clinical specialists from the O’Donnell Brain Institute.

Great strides are being made in treating and curing cancer, added Dr. Carlos Arteaga, Director of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, which will be expanding from the clinical buildings nearby. He said the new facility would triple current cancer care capabilities on campus, providing added space for multidisciplinary care, private treatment rooms, genetic counseling, imaging, physical medicine, clinical trials, supportive care, and telemedicine.

We expect this outpatient cancer care tower to be not only the exceptional destination for those with a cancer diagnosis in Dallas and in surrounding areas seeking the latest standards of care, but also a shining light of clinical investigation, innovation, and progress, Dr. Arteaga said.

Toward the end of the event, Dr. Podolsky introduced Morgan Aaron and her mother, Dawn, to share their personal stories of how far UT Southwestern’s cancer and brain treatments have already come.

Morgan was 28 years old in 2016 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer that had spread to her brain, resulting in five brain tumors.

Within days of her diagnosis, Morgan’s UT Southwestern care team – comprised of Dr. Barbara Haley, Dr. Toral Patel, and Dr. Robert Timmerman – had performed the treatment that saved her daughter’s life, said Dawn. “Today Morgan is healthy. She is cancer-free.”

Reason and logic say I should not be standing here before you all today, said Morgan. You brought me back to life.