UNC alumnus donates $10 million to center that saved his life

W.G. Champion “Champ” Mitchell doesn't think he would be here today if not for the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. It was there that the UNC graduate and retired lawyer and business executive was treated for stage 4 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, in 2015. 

Mitchell’s treatment was not quick. He originally underwent chemotherapy and went into remission. But a year later, the cancer was back. Lineberger developed a treatment plan with both chemotherapy and a stem cell bone marrow transplant. The treatment was successful.

Now, Mitchell and his wife Etteinne “ET” Mitchell are giving back to the University that saved his life with a $10 million gift to expand blood cancer research at Lineberger.

“The only reason I am here to write this check is because of Lineberger,” Champ Mitchell said. “The staff at the cancer hospital are phenomenal. They could not have been kinder, more professional or concerned. They are just fabulous people. They're the ones that got us through this.”

A large portion of the gift will fund immunotherapy research and clinical trials, Champ Mitchell said. Immunotherapy is a type of treatment that teaches certain cells to attack cancer without killing any other cells. 

Lineberger is one of few academic medical centers in the United States capable of conducting cellular immunotherapy.

“It’s an honor and exciting for us that people have the confidence in the University and its cancer center to invest,” said H. Shelton Earp, director of UNC Lineberger. “This is a big investment, and they believe we can take the funds that they’re going to make available over time and really do something that will change the course of cancer care and cancer treatment in North Carolina and beyond.”

The team that saved Mitchell’s life was led by Thomas Shea, the John William Pope distinguished professor in Cancer Research.

“It’s gratifying to me as this man’s physician that he feels that we’re worthy of that degree of support from him, so it’s flattering he has given us that much responsibility and trusts that we are able to take his donation and do positive things with it,” Shea said.

Mitchell didn’t realize how little he knew about cancer before his diagnosis but now hopes his donation will continue Lineberger’s cancer treatment innovation.

“The more we learned, the more we realized that there were therapies coming along that offered a much better chance of a cure and were, if you will, much more humane,” Mitchell said. “And we wanted to help them reach that goal. Carolina is one of the leaders in that effort in the world.”

Earp said the gift will aid Lineberger in pursuing more funding in this area from the federal government and cancer foundations in the next few years.

“What’s beautiful about both the gift and our cancer program is that we have the ability to kind of move that seamlessly into patients, and so the gift will also be used for the infrastructure for clinical research,” Earp said.

The resources made available by Mitchell’s gift and others are intended to be available for everyone in the state, Shea said.

“It’s not the wealthy Tar Heels,” Shea said. “It’s for the people who don’t have opportunities to go anywhere else. And they want to make the care here as good as any place else so that it’s available for all North Carolinians. And I really think that kind of public sense of responsibility and commitment is a critical difference that makes us stand out from many of the other cancer programs around the country that don’t really have that sort of public mission as part of their core value.”

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