NYC hospital to get bone marrow transplant unit

NEW YORK (AP) - The NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital will be getting a new bone marrow transplant unit.

Construction on the 9,400-square-foot Irving Bone Marrow Transplant Union is scheduled to be completed in early 2014.

The center is made possible by a $20 million gift from philanthropists Herbert and Florence Irving.

It will provide life-saving therapy for patients with blood cancers. They include leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma and other autoimmune diseases.

Another $40 million grant from the longtime supporters was announced in June. It helped recruit five new clinician-scientists in leukemia to the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Medical Center.

The five specialists joined the faculty this month.