Delbert Day, CerE’58, Curators’ Professor emeritus of ceramic engineering at Missouri S&T, has made a name for himself in cancer research. Now his name will be associated with a cancer institute at Phelps County Regional Medical Center.

In January, PCRMC in Rolla announced the creation of the Delbert Day Cancer Institute. Funded through a gift from Day’s son and daughter-in-law, Ted and Kim Day, the institute will allow PCRMC to work with the National Cancer Institute’s Community Clinical Oncology Program, which connects local patients and physicians with NCI-sponsored new treatments and clinical trials for drugs. Through the Delbert Day Cancer Institute, PCRMC patients will have access to new therapies and treatments.

An expert in developing specialty glasses, Day is best known for co-inventing glass microspheres, now marketed under the brand name TheraSphere, which are used commercially in the United States and Canada to treat patients with liver cancer. The treatment consists of injecting millions of the irradiated tiny beads — each one about half the thickness of a human hair — into the main artery supplying blood to the liver. The beads then deliver localized radiation to malignant cells without harming healthy tissue.