UH Case Medical Center receives largest-ever donation

University Hospitals Case Medical Center has received the largest single donation in its 143-year history, $35 million that’s earmarked for cancer research.

The donation comes from the estate of Dr. Donald J. Goodman and Ruth Weber Goodman and will go toward funding a clinical research program at UH’s Cancer Hospital, which is expected to open in May 2011, according to a statement from UH.

Dr. Goodman 10 years ago was the first patient to receive a novel cancer therapy that treated his “aggressive leukemia” at UH’s cancer hospital. Dr. Goodman was cancer-free 12 days later, according to the statement.

Dr. Goodman was a dentist and stock market investor who died in 2007. His wife died in 2008, and had inherited the estate of her father, who founded Triplex Screw Corp.

The 3,700-square-foot Goodman Discovery Center, named in honor of the couple, will be on the third floor of the 10-floor Cancer Hospital. The 150-bed Cancer Hospital will house all inpatient and outpatient cancer services on the UH campus and will be one of only 12 free-standing cancer hospitals in the nation, according to the statement.

The third floor also will include an exercise room, a bone marrow-transplant laboratory and a pharmacy.

The Cancer Hospital is a primary component of UH’s $1.2 billion strategic plan called Vision 2010. The plan also includes a new neonatal intensive care unit, new emergency medicine center and the Ahuja Medical Center in Beachwood.

The Goodman gift is the eighth in excess of $10 million to UH in support of Vision 2010.