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Oct. 28, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Engelstad facility is new theater in war on cancer

By PAUL HARASIM
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Cancer researcher Sheri Holmen and her parents, Faye and Dave Holmen, attend the dedication ceremony for the new Ralph and Betty Engelstad Cancer Research Building at the Nevada Cancer Institute in Summerlin.
Photo by Gary Thompson.

Nearly an hour before a new cancer research building was dedicated early Tuesday at the Nevada Cancer Institute, one car sat in front of the huge three-story structure.

The driver rolled down the Chevrolet Malibu's window, shared a few pleasantries with a stranger about the howling, chilly wind, and then said it wouldn't be long before his daughter, a cancer researcher, showed up for the ceremony.

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    • If Dave Holmen had been even a tad prouder, his smile wouldn't have fit through a doorway.

    "Sheri (Holmen, his daughter) decided to become a cancer researcher because her mother had breast cancer and then she saved her mother's life," said the smiling father, who came from Michigan for the ceremony. "We're here to support her and her work."

    In a country where nearly 1,500 people die each day of cancer and another 1.5 million people are diagnosed each year with malignancies, the story told by Dave and Faye Holmen and their daughter Sheri is a reminder that the news from the battlefront in the war on cancer isn't always grim.

    Kris Engelstad McGarry, the daughter of Ralph and Betty Engelstad, for whom the new $50 million research building is named, told those gathered for the dedication ceremony in Summerlin that she is convinced that it won't be long before people are regularly hearing about major breakthroughs in the search for cancer treatments and cures.

    To that end, the Engelstad Family Foundation of Las Vegas committed a $20 million gift to what is now the largest dedicated research building in the state, a 184,000-square-foot facility that can house up to 40 individual laboratories.

    In 2002 the foundation was formed in the memory of Ralph Engelstad, the former owner and operator of the Imperial Palace who died of lung cancer that year. In 2006, the foundation donated $15 million to the institute for the advancement of research, screening and treatment in the field of lung cancer.

    "What the Engelstad foundation is doing is giving us a chance to do our best work," said Sheri Holmen, who earned her Ph.D. in tumor biology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. She now works at the institute to develop more targeted drug therapies that wipe out cancer cells.

    Standing with her visiting parents outside the new research building, the third building on the institute's growing campus near Town Center Drive and Twain Avenue, Holmen recalled that she was a freshman at Western Michigan University when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 1993.

    She wasn't told of her mother's condition, diagnosed on her mother's 48th birthday, until two months after the diagnosis.

    "I didn't want to interrupt her finals," said Faye Holmen, who was convinced she would soon die.

    Now 64, Faye Holmen underwent a lumpectomy in Muskegon, Mich., before she told her daughter about the cancer found in her left breast. "She was angry at me for not telling her at first, but her schoolwork was so important."

    The mother of two -- her son is a small-business owner in Michigan -- also needed radiation and chemotherapy treatments. As she accompanied her mother to her chemotherapy, Sheri Holmen decided to devote herself to cancer research.

    "Biology is a big field and what my mother was going through made me focus," she said.

    After more than six years without a recurrence, Faye Holmen found another lump in her left breast in 1999. A mastectomy and six months of chemotherapy followed. She and her husband, a retired community college administrator who went to all of his wife's treatments, often would cry themselves to sleep in each other's arms.

    "Chemotherapy can be tough," Sheri Holmen said. "I watched her get sick and her hair fall out. That's why I am working so hard to have targeted drug therapies, so good cells along with the bad don't have to die from the therapies."

    In 2003, when cancer was found to have spread to her mother's left lung, Sheri Holmen did more than just accompany her father and mother to the doctor.

    Then finished with her training at the Mayo Clinic and working as a researcher at a Grand Rapids, Mich., cancer center, she disagreed when her mother's Muskegon oncologist said her mother could undergo chemotherapy, but still would have only six months to live.

    Sheri Holmen had read studies about a new surgery that had been done on patients with her mother's condition at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. When she called cancer specialists at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, it turned out they were aware of the procedure and soon performed it on Faye Holmen.

    Six years after her lung surgery, Faye Holmen now travels around the country with her husband in an RV towing a Chevy Malibu. Their goal is to sleep in the RV in each of the contiguous states.

    "If it hadn't been for my daughter, I'd be dead now instead of living out my dream of traveling," she said. "I didn't know any better."

    To Sheri Holmen, who came to the Nevada Cancer Institute in 2007, what happened to her mother proves one thing. "You have to have cancer centers like the Nevada Cancer Institute," said Holmen, a mother of two children. Her husband, Matt Van Brocklin, is also a cancer researcher at the institute.

    "You can't rely on doctors who are just going on what they learned years ago in medical school. You need places that are doing cutting edge things, where the doctors and researchers are talking about the latest treatments and research findings. That's how you save lives."

    Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2908.

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    Opinion wrote on October 28, 2009 10:09 PM: Big Bill

    What does Ghandi have to do with anything? Did Ghandi celebrate Hitler's Birthday like Ralph Engelstad?

    No good person would celebrate Hitler in any way...so donating money does not make you a good person. Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Stalin was nice to his dog...so what?


    SamT wrote on October 28, 2009 06:21 PM: I am a Republican and I am voting for Harry Reid.

    A vote for Reid is a vote for Nevada!


    Big Bill wrote on October 28, 2009 05:51 PM: "...and all I will remember Ralph for is his secret room devoted to Hitler, his party on Hitler's birthday, and his massive fine for "tarnishing the reputation of gaming in Nevada." -Michael

    Let's see. He has a huge collection of German memorabilia, pre-Republic to 1945, and all you can whinge about is his Hitler 1933-1945 stuff? Any problems with the Second Reich? The Weimar Republic.

    The guy donates millions to cancer, builds stadiums and libraries, and you sit on your pompous high horse.

    Any opinions on Ghandi?

    In my opinion, send the money someplace else, to a group of people who can appreciate it for what it is. Mayo Clinic, or MD Anderson.


    Oscar wrote on October 28, 2009 05:09 PM: What these facilities DO is get government grants for research. Oddly enough, cancer in many forms has been "Researched" for over 60 years by Research Facilities that get Federal Funding. For all the results they actually produce, it appears all they really successfully do, is keep themselves going, like a self-serving entity. How tightly is the money monitored that these "Facilities" spend on lavish salaries and bonuses for the people who "work" there. Is seems that they are bigger money-makers than Casinos, and a wonderful place to be on the board of Directors, or any Supervisory position there. I see no major BREAKTHROUGHS in research produced by these "Facilities". They just quietly exist, and the people who claim to work there, make damn good money for what they actually do. The family that is investing such large sums of cash to build this "Facility",...what is their motive? Rich people aren't generally considered generous. Most often, quite the opposite. That's how they GOT rich. Is this place a write-off, or will it generate money or Equity? Surely Cancer Research could be a motive,....but is it?


    Isnt' it interesting to follow the money wrote on October 28, 2009 04:47 PM: You'll notice these types of "institutions" NEVER find their way over to the East Side or NLV. They all end up in Summerlin, wonder why? Besides cancer "research" is a shame and has been a shame for decades. You see, it is a money generating enterprise with no attempt to deliver the "cure." For the "cure" exists, but that is not going to be released for fear of losing all that "research" funding. I'm sick of it all.


    benjy ashley wrote on October 28, 2009 03:52 PM: I am so happy for L.V.

    a Houstonian


    Local Las Vegan wrote on October 28, 2009 02:52 PM: VivaVegas - you do know that Jim and Heather Murren founded the Nevada Cancer Institute, don't you?


    z wrote on October 28, 2009 02:31 PM: Ifn I had me all that money, i'd be living elsewhere, not here...


    Golda wrote on October 28, 2009 02:30 PM: Making millions or billions taking money from a bunch of schmucks does not make one a great man or woman.

    This two bit town glorifies saloon keepers and slot purveyors. Glad I left it.

    And no good person would celebrate Adolph Hitler's birthday. I can give you at least 6 million reasons why.


    Brad Gore wrote on October 28, 2009 01:25 PM: Nice Reporting on a worthwhile topic. Please keep us updated on the progress and the human interest behind this endeavor which is so much more important than the world of politics. No one really knows what real problems are until they find themselves at the recieving end of the treatment and potential cures most of which have come from soft money via our system of government. It is one of the great benefits of our country to have this aspect of our American society.


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