The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (SKCC) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday, April 17, calling the legal filings a larger research center’s opportunity – and revealing the nearby Burnham Institute for Medical Research’s interest in the nonprofit’s assets. “Talks are ongoing to allow Burnham to acquire the largest building on the Kimmel campus where much of the scientific research is being done,” said John C. Reed, Burnham’s president and CEO. “If this can be accomplished, Burnham will work closely with SKCC to transition their existing research grants to Burnham, where researchers will be able to temporarily continue their work with as little disruption as possible.” Burnham Institute and the other life-science centers on the Torrey Pines mesa collaborate together to move forward, Reed said, and those nonprofit research centers respect SKCC’s accomplishments. “The filing will provide a legal framework and opportunity for the independent cancer research center to be purchased by another entity — ideally another nonprofit research institute with a compatible mission,” SKCC chief executive officer Jan D’Alvise said in a press release. D’Alvise said SKCC’s board of trustees determined the nonprofit research center had run out of economic options. “In assessing the center’s financial realities against the challenges presented by the larger economic circumstances that all nonprofit institutions like SKCC are currently facing, the board of directors decided that there were no other options,” D’Alvise said. Executives said that SKCC would auction the organization’s assets during Chapter 11 proceedings. In 2008, Burnham collaborated with three nearby nonprofit research science centers, including Salk Institute for Biological Studies, The Scripps Research Institute and University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The group formed the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine (SCRM). The consortium recently released a draft environmental impact report for the 135,000-square-foot research facility project located at UCSD. Officials for SCRM said the consortium’s plans are on track. Although the organization was waiting for a $43 million state grant awarded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), officials said that funding came through last week. Philanthropist T. Denny Sanford of Sioux Falls, S.D., donated $30 million to SDCRM in September 2008. The SKCC was founded in 1990 in an effort to convert “laboratory discoveries into non-toxic treatments for cancer,” the organization’s website said. Nearly 20 years later, SKCC researches five programs, including immunology, vascular biology, genomics, cancer cell biology and drug development. SKCC redirects therapy from normal tissue to cancer cells and those that cancer depends on, according to SKCC, which reduces toxicity and increases effectiveness. The center also uses gene therapy (genomics) to individualize cancer therapies. “It is important to the board and to Sidney Kimmel, our benefactor, that the core mission of SKCC as embodied in the scientific research of the center’s faculty continues unabated,” D’Alvise said. For more information about the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, visit www.skcc.org. For more information about Burnham, visit www.burnham.org.