The new 228,000-square-foot Duan Family Building at Jacksonville's Mayo Clinic campus. | Mayo Clinic
Published on June 11, 2025 at 12:55 pm
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Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville is now home to a new facility to treat people diagnosed with the most aggressive and treatment-resistant cancers.
The 228,000-square-foot Duan Family Building will house the first carbon ion therapy program in North America. The advanced technology can deliver multiple ways to treat the same tumor, Mayo officials said.
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Carbon ion therapy is expected to begin there in 2028, a year after the facility starts offering proton therapy. Other cancer treatment options offered this summer including photon therapy, immunotherapy and more, along with sophisticated imaging technology, Mayo said.
The new technology provides an alternative to surgery, said Cheryl Willman, executive director of Mayo Clinic’s Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“You think about these women not needing mastectomies, not needing disfiguring surgery, and a simple radiation treatment could cure their cancer,” the doctor said. “So tumors that are radio-resistant; tumors that are not curable by surgery alone; tumors that are not responsive to chemotherapy — radiation becomes a better option.”
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The 440-acre Mayo Clinic of Florida at 4500 San Pablo Road S. was the first extension of the iconic 150-year-old medical facility in Minnesota when it opened in 1986. The institution now has three Comprehensive Cancer Care facilities in Minnesota, Arizona and Jacksonville.
Patients with cancer can require radiation therapy during their treatment. Each kind has a different effect on cancer cells, Mayo said.
- Photon therapy uses X-rays or gamma rays directed at a tumor, preventing the cancer cells from growing or dividing.
- Proton beam therapy directs a precise dose of positively charged particles at cancer cells, destroying their genetic material while minimizing the effect on surrounding, healthy cells.
- Carbon ion therapy delivers positively charged particles (carbon ions) that release their energy upon hitting the targeted cancerous tumor. The particles destroy cancer cells with very little damage to surrounding tissue. It is particularly effective against cancer cells that are resistant to other forms of radiation.
“The emerging treatments that will be offered in the Duan Family Building, including carbon ion therapy, are an important part of the integrated cancer practice at Mayo Clinic, ensuring constant, research-driven innovation in the care we are providing to patients,” Mayo Clinic Florida CEO Kent Thielen said in a news release.
Mayo Clinic researchers began working with Hitachi in 2019 to bring carbon ion therapy to America. The technology was available only in Europe and Asia until now.
The clinic is also exploring the use of other heavy ions beyond carbon in clinical studies to evaluate their potential benefits in future cancer care.
