Moffitt Cancer Center will treat its first proton therapy patient at the Speros campus in Land O' Lakes on Monday, July 27, bringing a new precision cancer treatment option to Pasco County residents.

Alex Shaffer, who has battled a brain tumor for 30 years and spent nine of those years as a Moffitt patient, will be the first person treated. His mother, Cindy Shaffer, told WFLA the precision matters: "They removed a tumor that was the size of a cutie orange in his frontal lobe. So for there to be less of a chance of killing off the healthy brain cells, yes! Yes, please. So, it's amazing."

The location of Alex Shaffer's tumor made him an ideal candidate for proton therapy, which Moffitt says uses sub-millimeter precision to target cancers near vital organs while sparing surrounding healthy tissue.

The machine is a Proteus ONE system built by Belgian manufacturer IBA. According to WFLA's July 17 report, it is one of roughly 40 such machines operating worldwide. It sits inside the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation Proton Therapy Center, funded in part by a $15 million gift from the Schulze foundation, according to a Moffitt news release.

Dr. Kosj Yamoah, chair of Moffitt's Department of Radiation Oncology, said the technology is especially suited for cancers near the brain, heart and lungs. He said the goal is "to convert cancer into maybe a chronic problem and cure it or eradicate it entirely."

A billion-dollar campus takes shape in Pasco County

The proton therapy launch is the latest milestone for the 775-acre Speros campus at 16828 Ridge Road, just east of the Suncoast Parkway. The first building, a 120,000-square-foot outpatient cancer center, opened to patients in January 2026.

Phase 1A alone carried an estimated price tag of $1.6 billion when announced in 2023, with $600 million from Moffitt, the state of Florida and Pasco County, and another $1 billion in private-sector investment, according to Moffitt's groundbreaking announcement. At full buildout, the campus is projected to employ approximately 14,000 people across 16 million square feet of lab, office, manufacturing and clinical space.

"When you have 775 acres of development, that's twice the size of downtown Tampa, so we're literally building a city that's all about curing cancer and life sciences," Bill Cronin, president and CEO of the Pasco Economic Development Council, said at the campus's January 2026 grand opening ceremony, as reported by WUSF.

Phase 1A construction, which includes a 250,000-square-foot Discovery and Innovation Center and a Cryogene biorepository, is scheduled for completion in 2028. Moffitt, Florida's only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, is also exploring FLASH proton therapy at the new center, an experimental approach that delivers radiation at ultra-high dose rates and could further expand treatment options for patients in the region.