Bloomington officials break ground on training center for fighting cancer

In an event Tuesday that was both literally and figuratively groundbreaking, officials ceremoniously dug shovels into the future site of the nation's first proton therapy training center. \nThe ProCure Training and Development Center, set to open in early 2008 on North Walnut Street, will train technicians to use the most advanced form of radiation treatment available to fight cancerous tumors. \n"Bloomington will be a world leader in proton therapy," Steve Bryant, director of the Bloomington Life Science Partnership, said during the ceremony. \nProton therapy allows radiation to specifically target a certain area, which means tumors are killed off more quickly and patients have a higher quality of life, said Hadley Ford, the chief executive officer and director of ProCure. \nChildren especially benefit from proton therapy, according to ProCure literature. Because their bodies are still growing, traditional radiation therapies can cause debilitating growth abnormalities and other serious complications. Proton therapy also lessens the side effects of traditional radiation therapy, including headaches, diarrhea and loss of appetite. \n"One-point-four million people will be diagnosed with cancer this year, and 800,000 of them will be treated with some form of radiation," Ford said. "But only 1 percent will have access to proton therapy. ProCure is looking to change that."\nThose changes are starting right now. Currently, only five hospitals in the United States use proton therapy. But ProCure has just begun construction on two more centers and expects to build two or three more each year, President and Chairman John Cameron said. \n"Let's get protons out there and cure a lot of people," he said.\nThe ProCure Training and Development Center will teach medical professionals how to use proton therapy techniques before they start working at a ProCure treatment center. \n"We are not offering on-the-job training; we're offering before-the-job training," Ford said. \nWhile the ProCure Training and Development Center will be new to Bloomington, proton therapy is not.\nBloomington's Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute, located just north of the stadium, is one of only a handful of centers around the country currently using proton therapy, Cameron said. The facility treats 20 to 25 patients a day, Cameron said. \nCameron, until recently a professor of physics and director of the IU Cyclotron Facility, was also responsible for finding some of the initial funding and construction of the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute. \nFounding ProCure is Cameron's second dream. It's "one I never thought I'd get to have," he said. \nThe training center is expected to have a positive impact on Bloomington's economy, said Gary Shelley, interim president of the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation.\n"(The training center) is exactly the kind of stuff this community is looking for," Shelley said. "It'll bring high-paying and highly skilled jobs to Bloomington." \nThe center will train about 150 to 250 people at a time, who will come to Bloomington from all over the country for about eight weeks at a time, Cameron said. In a speech during the ground-breaking ceremony, Mayor Mark Kruzan noted that those people staying in Bloomington's hotels and eating in its restaurants will have a positive effect on the local economy. \nBut even more importantly, Kruzan said, is the center will establish Bloomington's role as a life science hub. \n"Indiana will become a cancer-cure crossroads of America," State Representative Peggy Welch said.