Cancer Foundation Seeks $20 Million : Health: Fund drive aims to finance new building for the prestigious research group.

The La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation on Wednesday announced a $20-million fund-raising campaign to finance a new building, additional land and the retirement of long-term debt.

“This is needed to bring us to the next level of research,” said San Diego businessman and foundation Chairman Malin Burnham. “More (research) must be done, and the (foundation) trustees feel that now is the time to push forward and expand the pace of research.”

The foundation has already raised $4 million of the $20 million, Burnham said.

The prestigious research foundation, which was founded in 1976, is one of 15 centers nationwide designated as basic cancer research centers by the National Cancer Institute. The center attracted $11.9 million in federal government and private-sector grants during 1992, up from $11.4 million in 1991.

The fund-raising campaign is designed to expand research space for the foundation’s 250 employees, including 100 who hold advanced degrees. Some of those researchers now work in rented space, while others are working in cramped quarters at the foundation’s La Jolla campus, foundation President Erkki Ruoslahti said.

The new building, which is under construction at the foundation’s campus on North Torrey Pines Road in La Jolla, will increase research space by at least 20%, Ruoslahti said. That space is needed because “there’s been an absolute explosion in our understanding of cancer,” Ruoslahti said. “With that explosion comes the need for more research space and more equipment.”

“This campaign will allow our foundation to go forward into perpetuity,” said William Fishman, a physician and researcher who, with his wife, Lillian, founded the foundation. “The board has shown tremendous vision and drive that will allow us to move on to the next research plateau.”

About $12 million of the $20-million total is earmarked for construction of the 63,000-square-foot research building, $4 million will be used to acquire 4 acres to the south of the existing campus, and $4 million will be used to retire existing debt.

“The bottom line of the campaign is to accelerate cancer research,” Burnham said. “Construction of our newest facility will allow us to put a greater number of scientists to work on the problem.”