PlantPharma

The opening Monday of the Mitchell Memorial Cancer Center at Owensboro Medical Health System is wonderful news in itself — for cancer patients who will receive their care there and for the hospital to have such a facility to offer the public.

But Tuesday’s announcement that a major cancer research center will be contained within the gleaming facility on the Breckenridge Street side of OMHS, in affiliation with the University of Louisville’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center, is real cause for celebration. Here are some of the reasons why:

- The research center is expected to attract scientsits from around the world.

- Researchers will explore tobacco-produced cancer medicines.

- Clinical trials will be performed.

- Dr. Don Miller, director of the Brown Cancer Cetner, will be in charge of the Owensboro research efforts, which will lend it instant credibility.

- The University of Kentuchky will be invited to be a partner.

- At the beginning, four to five research scientists, each supported by several staff members, will have up to $ 2 million in grant funds at their disposal. The number of scientists and money to suppor their activities will likely grow rapidly.

- Large Scale Biology, a biopharmaceutical company in Owensboro, will probably be involved in the manufacture of products used in the research center in the hopes that a tobacco-based vaccine can be created.

- Local tobacco growers may be asked to produce leaf for the research.

- It is not far-fetched to dream, as Owensboro Mayor Tom Watson does, that Owensboro can become the “plant-made pharmaceutical capital of the world.”

The benefits of having the Mitchell Memorial Center and a cancer research center within it are many and extensive for Owensboro and Daviess County. The community’s profile, as well as the hospital’s, will rise significantly in Kentucky and beyond. Residents will be able to point to the Mitchell complex with pride and excitement. The high-paying jobs it will create will spur the local economy.