Pushing the boundaries of cancer care

At the UCI Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, we have made unparalleled progress in our efforts to prevent, treat and cure cancer, ensuring that the people of Orange County and beyond live longer and healthier lives.

In the last year alone, the opening of our Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center in Irvine enabled us to double the number of patients we treat and increase the number of cancer clinical trials we offer by 20% to more than 500, including promising early-phase and investigator-initiated trials.

In 2025, we opened a radiation oncology center at UCI Health — Los Alamitos, expanded our cancer center in Fountain Valley and recruited more than 30 cancer specialists to speed patient access to the highest level of academic cancer care at the only Orange County-based comprehensive cancer center designated by the National Cancer Institute.

With the December opening of UCI Health — Irvine, our next-generation acute care hospital, we are poised to double our inpatient capacity with an entire floor dedicated to cancer care. It is also the new home of our stem-cell transplant and cellular therapy program, which saw unprecedented demand for these lifesaving treatments throughout 2025.

There is more to come in 2026. We will open a state-of-the-art stem-cell processing lab in the Irvine cancer center, allowing us to offer more and varied cancer cellular therapies as well as treat a growing number of patients with autoimmune diseases. We will also debut inpatient rehabilitation services for our cancer patients when UCI Health — Irvine Rehabilitation Hospital opens later this year.

We are making equally exciting strides in our mission to discover innovative new therapies and technologies. With the opening last May of the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building on the UC Irvine campus, our basic scientists and clinicians are now able to collaborate on groundbreaking research in more than 20,000 square feet of the most advanced lab facilities on the West Coast.

In partnership with the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute, we have broadened integrative oncology services to provide individualized, whole-person care to meet the full range of our patients’ healthcare needs. Under the leadership of nationally regarded integrative oncologist Dr. Gary E. Deng, we also are carrying out vital research to learn the best, most effective ways to combine complementary and alternative modalities with traditional cancer medicine.

We continue to expand care to our underserved communities through the cancer center’s Office of Community Outreach and Engagement (COE), working with local organizations, CalOptima and our Federally Qualified Family Healthcare Centers.

And once again, we thank the people of Orange County who turned out in record numbers to raise nearly $1.6 million for the ninth UC Irvine Anti-Cancer Challenge, a walk, run and ride event to support research efforts to defeat cancer. Since 2017, the annual rally has raised more than $7.75 million, and every dollar has supported more than 155 pilot projects and early-phase clinical trials at UCI Health and our pediatric cancer partner, Rady Children’s Hospital of Orange County. These research projects have generated more than $80 million in extramural grant funding over the last nine years.

These worthy pilot projects include a novel immunotherapy approach with the potential to destroy solid tumors without harming other tissue that is being readied for clinical trials. Another is a promising therapy for advanced gastric cancer that is now being tested in clinical trials at more than 50 U.S. cancer centers.

I couldn’t be prouder of the people who strive every day to revolutionize cancer diagnosis, treatment and care at the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Sincerely,

Richard A. Van Etten, MD, PhD

Director, Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center

Senior Associate Dean and Associate Vice Chancellor