Spotlight On: Stephen Nimer, Director, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center

Key points:

• • Sylvester’s NCI designation is expanding access to leading cancer specialists, clinical trials, and advanced treatments in South Florida.
• • The new Griffin Cancer Research Building is accelerating personalized medicine and patient-centered care.
• • Stephen Nimer says survivorship support is becoming more tailored as more patients live longer after cancer treatment.

June 2026 — Invest: We sat down with Stephen Nimer, director of Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Health System and the Miller School of Medicine, to discuss how NCI (National Cancer Institute) designation strengthens care in South Florida, why Sylvester’s model depends on tight clinical-research collaboration, and how survivorship support is being redesigned for a growing population of long-term patients. “People want to know if they can keep working, keep caring for their families, and keep living as much of their normal life as possible, and survivorship and supportive care helps make that possible,” Nimer said.

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As the only NCI-designated cancer center in South Florida, how does Sylvester’s designation translate into tangible benefits for patients?

Being an NCI-designated cancer center delivers benefits on multiple levels, and it starts with our ability to attract talent. Many physicians, especially luminary physicians, want to work at an NCI-designated cancer center. Researchers often only want to work at an NCI-designated cancer center, too, and that creates synergy. Researchers like the fact that we’re seeing patients, and physicians like that when they see patients with specific problems, they can go to a laboratory researcher and get them to start thinking about and studying what’s behind those problems. That blend of clinical care and research is super important for us, and designation helps us recruit stronger physicians and researchers, which benefits patients directly.

It’s also an attraction for the full care team: nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, and supportive care providers such as psychologists and nutritionists. If you want to have a career in cancer medicine, NCI designation matters. It helps us recruit from around the country and beyond, so we’re not only dependent on South Florida, and that depth strengthens the quality and consistency of care.

For patients, one of the most tangible benefits is access. There are drugs and treatments that are only available at NCI-designated cancer centers. We’re part of government-supported clinical trial networks, and we’re not just participants. We lead research efforts in a number of cancer types. For example, we’re part of the Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trial Network, the ETCTN, and we’re one of the leading participants. That means more treatment options are available here, rather than requiring patients to travel far away.

Pharma and biotech also prefer to test new compounds with teams that have expertise and experience. Our Phase 1 program, which is the first phase of testing new therapies, is one of the largest in the United States. Companies want to work with people who have a lot of experience, and our designation and track record help bring those opportunities to Miami.

Those trials require infrastructure. In our brand-new building that opened in fall 2025, the Kenneth C. Griffin Cancer Research Building, we have a large research pharmacy. Our pharmacists are used to handling drugs with specific guidelines about storage and timing, including therapies that need to be administered within minutes of being mixed. You need a whole system in place to do that safely and consistently.

NCI designation is also reassuring for patients, because anyone can say they have a great cancer center. There’s no definition for what it takes to say that. But here, the National Cancer Institute has said it about us. In 2024, we renewed our designation and received an outstanding score, a score that puts us in the top 15%-20% of the NCI-designated 4% of cancer centers in the United States. Patients can see there’s something behind the reputation.

We also have a survivorship program built upon our NCI status, and it’s available even for people who were never treated at Sylvester. If you’re a survivor and you want to ensure that long-term risks and challenges after treatment are effectively addressed, you can come and take advantage of our expertise. And we hold ourselves accountable. We have an external advisory board that reviews us every year and provides feedback on what’s exceptional and where we should devote our energies.

What kind of impact is the new Kenneth C. Griffin Cancer Research Building having on South Florida communities?

Florida has the second-highest cancer burden in the nation, with 30% of its population living in South Florida. Sylvester’s Griffin Cancer Research Building is equipped to address this issue, doubling our research footprint with an additional 244,000 square feet. This expanded research capacity means treatments can be increasingly tailored to genetic, molecular, and environmental factors, moving personalized medicine from promise to practice. Not to mention, the building provides the technological infrastructure and space flexibility to bring basic and translational research together.

This enhanced teamwork accelerates the translation of groundbreaking scientific discoveries into innovative, life-saving treatments and therapies for patients in South Florida and beyond. Sylvester’s Griffin Cancer Research Building also provides a uniquely designed, patient-centric environment that reduces wait times by having all services in one location and offers patients full-spectrum cancer support from yoga to music therapy.

As more patients live longer after cancer treatment, how is Sylvester advancing supportive care?

We just launched, officially, the university-designated Sylvester Survivorship and Supportive Care Institute. There are only a few survivorship institutes in the country, and it reflects how central survivorship is to our mission.

Our approach is holistic. It includes nutrition, physical activity, psychosocial support, and psychological or psychiatric services as needed. We provide integrative wellness services such as music therapy, art therapy, yoga, acupuncture, and other ways to support patients through treatment and beyond.

At the same time, with so many survivors, we’re trying to make survivorship more precise. It’s not one size fits all. Does everyone need the same diet and the same exercise, or the same level of psychosocial support, or can we tailor it based on people’s individual needs? We’re using artificial intelligence and machine learning, and we’re studying what predicts risk and what’s most effective in real life, not just what sounds good on paper.

A major challenge is adherence. It’s one thing to explain what someone should do. It’s another thing to help them stick with it. Sometimes people know what they’re supposed to do, but the question becomes: how do you get people to actually do that? That’s where program design and research meet.

We also have a program based upon Patient-Reported Outcomes, or PROs, and it’s been important. In cancer, when a patient comes to the doctor, the patient is hoping for a good visit, and a lot of times patients minimize symptoms. They may worry that reporting pain or nausea means the treatment isn’t working. Families often have to push patients to be honest.

We assess PROs, using the patient portal on a recurring basis. The patient goes online, usually on their phone, and asks questions. Patients are often more willing to report symptoms and concerns via a questionnaire rather than at their in-person visit. If a patient reports pain or fatigue, for example, the nurse gets notified immediately, and we can start treating those symptoms before that visit. Instead of patients coming back too weak for chemotherapy or other therapy, they can be stronger and adhere to treatment.

We’ve done important work showing that catching such issues early helps keep people out of the hospital and out of the emergency room. For us, survivorship starts the minute you’re diagnosed, not when you finish treatment. People want to know if they can keep working, keep caring for their families, and keep living as much of their normal life as possible, and supportive care helps make that possible.

How is the organization’s expansion and growth improving access and continuity of cancer care across South Florida and the region?

We’ve opened a radiation therapy facility in our Plantation satellite location, expanded in Hollywood and Coral Springs, opened a larger location in Doral, and began offering our services at our new UHealth Solé Mia Medical Center in North Miami. The goal is to serve community needs without having patients travel far. That’s a practical barrier to care, and reducing it improves continuity.

Our growth is based on our focus on quality. We are a destination cancer center. People fly to Sylvester from around the country and internationally to see certain doctors, certain surgeons, or to participate in certain programs. As our reputation for quality grows, more people seek us out.

Quality is also about compassion. One of the key things I hear all the time is how well our patients feel cared for. Yes, they’re getting the right medicines, but they also feel like everyone within Sylvester has a personal interest in them and is helping them on the journey to getting better. That culture drives our growth and our brand, and it’s something we protect as we expand.

Cancer medicine is humbling. You can do everything you know how to do, and people still die from cancer. But we’re making progress, with more survivors, better treatments, and less toxic therapies. It’s never fast enough, but it’s real progress, and it’s allowed us to build responsibly. Sylvester’s ability to combine access, expertise, and culture is pivotal to how we’re improving cancer care across South Florida and beyond.

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