The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center will receive more than $102 million from Pelotonia, more than half of the total collected in the 11-year-history of the fundraising bike ride, the university announced Friday.

The funds will come over the next five years, with $65 million going to a newly launched Pelotonia Institute of Immuno-Oncology and the rest supporting ongoing initiatives. The pledge represents the largest gift made to the university's cancer program.

The new institute will focus on the burgeoning field of immuno-oncology, which manipulates the body's immune system to fight the disease instead of using treatments such as radiation or chemotherapy that target cancer cells.

The full amount of the pledge — $102,265,000 — is a nod to the 2,265 riders who participated in the first Pelotonia ride in 2009, raising $4.5 million.

"We just really wanted to honor them," said Doug Ulman, Pelotonia's president and CEO, who credited those initial riders for creating and leading the movement over the past decade.

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Since its inception, Pelotonia has raised more than $194 million for the Cancer Center, which includes the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and the Richard J. Solove Research Institute. This year's event, with an opening ceremony on Aug. 2 and riding on Aug. 3-4, has 7,360 registered riders and has raised more than $10 million so far.

Dr. Zihai Li, founding director of the new institute, said federal dollars for cancer research remain stagnant, and the support from Pelotonia is critical to jump-start research at the institute. The Cancer Center is committing an additional $35 million to the endeavor.

Li referenced the use of a vaccine to eradicate smallpox, which once killed hundreds of thousands of people a year, to demonstrate the power of the immune system.

"The defense mechanism, can we make it better? Can we boost immune function?" Li said. "In people who have cancer, it means the immune system failed. Can we rewire it?"

Li said there has been success with a therapy that uses molecular switches to reactivate certain white blood cells, called T-cells, that become exhausted and fail in their job to attack cancer cells.

Although the therapy has been effective in treating several cancers, including those of the lung, bladder, liver, kidney and skin, it has not shown success against others, including brain tumors and ovarian and pancreatic cancers.

"We want this to be useful and effective for every patient of every cancer. We're not there yet," he said.

Li arrived in Columbus in April from the Medical University of South Carolina, where he was chair of microbiology and immunology and a co-leader of the Hollings Cancer Center immunology program. His team followed this month. Over the next five years, he hopes to recruit 32 additional research investigators and their teams.

"Once that's done, there will be hundreds of people working in this area," he said. "That will move the needle."

Research dollars, especially private donations that allow scientists leeway, are crucial to developing cutting-edge therapies, said Dr. Robyn Stacy-Humphries, a North Carolina radiologist who traveled to the James in 2016 to have her lymphoma treated with CAR-T therapy as part of a clinical trial.

Now FDA-approved for certain blood cancers, the therapy takes T-cells from a patient's blood, genetically alters them to target molecules on cancer cells, and re-injects them.

Stacy-Humphries said therapies like hers and immunotherapies allow people to return to daily activities more quickly and will, 20 years from now, make today's use of chemotherapy seem medieval.

"With immunotherapy, people often are able to return to their lives and live their lives, whether it's a wife and mother or an executive, they actually can return to being a functional human," she said. "... That’s one reason it's so remarkable; it's tolerated so much better."

Ulman said the Pelotonia pledge marks the first time the fundraiser has made a multi-year, forward-looking investment. He said the first portion of the pledge will be made later this year or early next year.

It's powerful, he said, to be able to make the pledge on behalf of the community, which will see its impact in the foreseeable future.

"Tens of thousands of people have ridden, tens of thousands of people have volunteered, and hundreds of thousands have gone to a bake sale or made a donation or bought a T-shirt," Ulman said. "... This is a massive community that understands the perils of this disease and wants to do something about it."

Li will add to the numbers this year as he rides in his first Pelotonia.

"I want to be part of the movement," Li said. "... Actually it's one of the reasons I came here to Columbus. I feel people here are amazing and so caring and believe in what, collectively, we can do."

jviviano@dispatch.com

@JoAnneViviano