On Thursday, the heads of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System signed a landmark collaborative agreement on ‘bench to bedside’ cancer care. According to executives of both institutions, the collaboration is a ‘strategic affiliation’, which will help approximately 16,000 cancer patients, treated each year by North Shore doctors.

The agreement between both the institutions could help benefit more patients in the New York City metropolitan area. The agreement is a new research and treatment affiliation.

The new ‘strategic alliance’ is aimed at bringing advanced cancer research developments and will help get funds, which will assist in more clinical trials. Many large hospital systems are associating with or establishing research facilities in this ‘translational medicine’ example.

The hospital system is making other changes to further cancer research and treatment, North Shore-LIJ Chief Executive Officer Michael Dowling said that many changes are being introduced to further cancer research and treatment by the hospital system.

According to him, “Bringing the scientists of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory together with the more than 200 academic oncologists and clinics of the North Shore-LIJ Cancer Institute will transform our approach to cancer research and treatment throughout the New York area”.

The health system is spending over $120 million in cancer research, diagnosis and treatment. It has facilities in Westchester County and in New York City. It has expanded its Cancer Institute in Lake Success, NY by spending $84 million over the past 2 years. The health system is also constructing a $34 million outpatient center in Bay Shore, NY and has also spent over $175 million in expanding cancer treatment in its system.

There have been eight scientists of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, who won the Nobel Prize.