fox chase cancer center
institutional advancement
333 Cottman Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19111-2497
Phone: 215-728-2745 Fax: 215-728-2759
www.foxchase.org
Moments in Time
a history of fox chase cancer center
how an institution has acted upon its mission and values in the past is a
powerful indicator of its ability to deliver on the promise of tomorrow.
On the following pages we document many of the milestones that define Fox Chase Cancer Center.
This is hardly an exhaustive history—so much important medicine and science has happened here
it would be impossible to capture it all—but a compelling story of progress, discovery, and achievement
emerges. Its main players: visionary leaders and philanthropists, creative scientists, innovative physicians,
compassionate nurses, dedicated volunteers and friends, and grateful patients and their families.
Ours is really two histories in one, since Fox Chase Cancer Center evolved from American Oncologic
Hospital, founded in 1904 as one of the nation’s first hospitals devoted exclusively to cancer care,
and the world-renowned Institute for Cancer Research, which grew from a research enterprise begun
at Lankenau Hospital shortly after World War I.
It’s thrilling to imagine the entries we will add to our timeline in the next decade, as we continue our
commitment to excellence in cancer research, treatment, and prevention to benefit our patients, their
families, and our community.
Sincerely,
michael v. seiden, m.d., ph.d.
President and CEO
1906
patient elizabeth anderson, thrifty domestic servant-turnedphilanthropist, bequeaths more than $40,000—the equivalent
of $900,000 today—to American Oncologic Hospital. The funds
enable the Hospital to build a new home at
33rd Street and Powelton Avenue in 1911.
1904
on october 8, a group of philadelphia
physicians and businessmen, concerned with rising
cancer rates in the city, sign the charter establishing the
American Oncologic Hospital, one of the country’s first
hospitals devoted exclusively to cancer. It opens on
January 4, 1905, in a converted Victorian home at 45th
and Chestnut streets in West Philadelphia. In its first
year, it admits 206 patients.
Prevailing public perceptions of cancer hold that
most cancers are incurable, contagious, and caused by
trauma. The only treatment options are surgery and
radiation therapy.
American Oncologic Hospital began
in this West Philadelphia Victorian home.
1 9 1 3 : The American Society for the Control of Cancer — renamed
the American Cancer Society in 1944 — is founded in New York City.
1917
twenty-six-year-old stanley p. reimann, m.d., a 1913
graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine,
becomes chief pathologist at Lankenau Hospital, then at Girard and
Corinthian streets in North Philadelphia. Along with collaborator
Frederick S. Hammett, Ph.D., a biologist and biochemist, he begins
a research program at the hospital to study the fundamental processes
involved in cancer.
From 1911 to 1967, the Hospital was located in this
building at 33rd and Powelton in West Philadelphia.
Stanley P. Reimann (1891–1968).
1925
the april 25 edition of Philadelphia’s Public Ledger announces the opening
of a research facility at Lankenau Hospital. Reimann is the founding director
of what in 1927 becomes the Lankenau Hospital Research Institute. Patient
and friend Rodman Wanamaker, son of department store founder John
Wanamaker, donates the funds to build the facility. A marble seal on the
Institute’s rotunda floor acknowledges his largesse with the words:
“For Humanity.” From the start, Reimann leads with a then-novel
belief that the key to understanding cancer lies in the study of normal
cell growth and development. Cancer research up until
that time had focused solely on studies of tumor tissues.
1928
jeanes hospital is founded, through a bequest from Quaker
philanthropist Anna T. Jeanes, to treat “cancerous, nervous, and
disabling ailments.” The hospital, in the Fox Chase section of Northeast
Philadelphia, played a key role in the formation of Fox Chase Cancer
Center, offering adjacent land to the Institute for Cancer Research in the
late 1940s and to American Oncologic Hospital in the mid-1960s.
Two generations of Fox Chase leaders
in one family: George (left) and
Morrie Dorrance.
1929
pioneering plastic surgeon george
m. dorrance, m.d. (1877–1949), becomes
the American Oncologic Hospital’s first medical director. Decades earlier, George’s chemist brother, John, invented condensed
soup and later led the Campbell Soup Company. George’s son, Philadelphia banker
G. Morris Dorrance Jr., would go on to head the Hospital’s board of trustees from
1957 to 1974, when he became Fox Chase Cancer Center’s first board chairman.
Rodman Wanamaker’s “For Humanity” marble seal.
1931
facing financial constraints in the early days of the Great
Depression, the Institute survives after Lankenau Hospital’s board of
trustees, inspired by the research there, votes to support the Institute
with personal contributions. An accomplished pianist, Dr. Reimann
raises $5,000 by performing eight piano recitals.
Mary Ethel Pew.
1930
with $1,000 from his fatherin-law, Reimann establishes the
Marine Experimental Station of the
Institute, a one-room laboratory on the
bay in North Truro, Mass. Its mission:
to investigate the biological basis of
cancer. Teams of Institute scientists, led
by biologist and biochemist Frederick
S. Hammett, Ph.D., conduct studies on
the area’s teeming sea life. Work at the
scientific outpost ceases in 1948.
“Cancer is a great menace and only public
understanding of it can result in its ultimate elimination.”
— Anna Gray
1933
the newly formed anna m. gray auxiliary holds the first “annual
cancer forum” for the public. For 50 cents each, 150 people attend a lecture
and a luncheon and tour the Institute. Barely whispered in the 1930s, the
word “cancer” is used openly. Today, the auxiliary’s spirit of volunteerism
and advocacy is embodied by Fox Chase’s Board of Associates.
Pioneering cancer educator and fundraiser Anna Gray, far
right, and other members of the auxiliary she founded welcome
Eva Curie, third from left, daughter of “Madame” Marie
Curie, to the Institute for Cancer Research in 1948.
1935
mary anderson pew, matriarch of
the Sun Oil Company’s founding family,
dies of cancer. Her daughter Mary Ethel
Pew and son J. Howard Pew become
leading advocates and supporters
of Dr. Reimann and the Institute
for Cancer Research. The family’s
foundation, now the Pew Charitable
Trusts, approves a grant to the Institute
at its first meeting in 1948.
early 1940s
with an eye toward future growth —and increased
funding—Lankenau trustee Philip T. Sharples recommends
creating a sister entity to Lankenau’s research institute,
identifying cancer as a major research focus. He recommends dropping the local hospital name and adding the
word “cancer.” The Institute for Cancer Research is
formally incorporated in January 1945. Sharples becomes
the Institute’s first president and J. Howard Pew serves as
chairman of the board.
mid-1940s
1 9 3 7 : The National Cancer Institute is established to support research
“related to the causes, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer.”
institute scientists begin a
tradition that continues to this day: tea time.
Each afternoon at 3:30, tea and cookies are
served in the Fox Chase cafeteria.
1943
pioneering geneticist jack schultz, ph.d., joins the
Institute. Schultz’s primary interests are in the nature and function of
genes. With T. Caspersson, he participated in the application of new
instruments to the study of nucleic acids. Ideas based on their work
informed some of the basic concepts underlying what became known
as molecular biology. In addition to his research, Schultz contributed
to the evolution of the Institute in informal yet profound ways over
the next three decades.
Jack Schultz (1904–1971).
“Stanley Reimann always was very encouraging to
women and treated them absolutely on a level with
the men. There was no discrimination whatsoever.
Salaries were the same.”
—Fox Chase biochemist Elizabeth Knight Patterson, Ph.D., in 1985
Institute staff in 1936.
1946
with a staff now numbering 46, the Institute has outgrown
its Lankenau Hospital home. The Society of Friends, trustees
of Jeanes Hospital, offers land in Fox Chase. Of the Institute’s
10 laboratory heads, four are women.
Hugh Creech in the 1970s.
1945
hugh j. creech, ph.d., begins
his 31-year career at the Institute.
An organic chemist, Creech would
become widely recognized for
pioneering work in developing
and testing chemotherapy agents,
especially nitrogen-mustard
compounds and other alkylating
agents, which have the ability to interfere
with cell metabolism and growth.
1947
on june 5, ground is broken for the Institute for
Cancer Research’s new home in Fox Chase. The 50- by
283-foot facility, built with funds from the Pew family,
provides space for “about 100 research workers divided
into working groups in various fields all headed toward
a reasonable solution of the cancer problem,” wrote architect
Vincent G. Kling in the ceremony’s program. The building
was named for Stanley Reimann in the early 1990s.
1952
institute biologists robert w. briggs, ph.d., and Thomas J. King, Ph.D., undertake a novel
investigation of cellular diversification during embryonic development. They transferred nuclei from
progressively older frog embryos into frog eggs with their nuclei removed, and found that nuclei
from the early embryo could mediate normal development of recipient eggs. Later, researchers
elsewhere showed, in a more suitable amphibian species, that even nuclei from differentiated cells
were consistent with complete development. The possibility of experimentally changing gene
expression has since become a major area of investigation.
Timothy R. Talbot Jr.
(1916–1988).
1957
1954
american oncologic hospital expands
with the addition of the George Morris Dorrance
Clinic, honoring the Hospital’s first medical
director.
a new era of progress, growth, and
stability begins at the Institute with the
appointment of Timothy R. Talbot Jr., M.D.,
as scientific director. Over the next 20 years,
he champions the move of American
Oncologic Hospital to the Institute’s campus
and, with Hospital board chairman G. Morris
Dorrance Jr., Hospital president Edward
J. Roach, and Institute board chairman
G. Willing Pepper, leads the subsequent
formation of Fox Chase Cancer Center,
becoming its first president.
1958
volunteers establish the
trading post thrift and consignment
shop to support research at the Institute
for Cancer Research. The shop continues
to operate today at 1536 East Lancaster
Avenue in Paoli.
Peter Nowell (left) and David Hungerford.
1960
beatrice mintz, ph.d.,
joins the Institute. She would
go on to produce the first
genetically modified mice.
She devised methods to obtain
chimeric mice and later,
transgenic mice, comprising
cellular genetic markers for in
vivo analyses of development and specific diseases.
Her experiments revealed the clonal basis of development
from successively restricted stem cells. They also provided
evidence for the origin of cancers from stem cells with an
altered balance between proliferation and differentiation
and for critical influences from the microenvironment on
these processes.
1959
david a. hungerford, a graduate student at Fox Chase,
and Peter C. Nowell, M.D., a pathologist at the University
of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, detect an abnormality
on chromosome 22 in cells taken from patients with chronic
myeloid leukemia (CML). The discovery provides the first
conclusive evidence that cancer is a genetic disorder of somatic
cells. This chromosomal abnormality would become known
as the Philadelphia chromosome, for the city in which
Hungerford and Nowell both worked. The 1960 publication
of their research marked the first scientific discovery to lead
to a targeted therapy for cancer. Today, many patients with
CML live for years on imatinib (marketed as Gleevec™),
a drug therapy that targets the cancer-causing protein
produced by the Philadelphia chromosome.
“Beatrice Mintz’s groundbreaking research has
changed the way scientists are able to investigate
the progression and metastasis of cancers and
shed light on this disease.”
— Peter K. Voht, Ph.D., The Scripps Research Institute, in announcing
Mintz as the recipient of the 2011 Albert Szent-Györgyi Prize for
Progress in Cancer Research
1962
the institute for cancer research receives the first of what is
later known as a Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) award from the
National Cancer Institute. To facilitate discovery and its translation
into direct benefit to patients and the general public, the NCI awards
Cancer Center Support Grants to institutions that have a critical mass
of excellent cancer-relevant scientific research. Also referred to
as a “core grant,” the award provides funding to support the scientific
infrastructure of the Center.
1 9 6 4 : The first U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on
Smoking and Health becomes the first widely publicized
recognition that cigarette smoking causes cancer and other
serious diseases — although some had suggested a link as
early as the 18th century.
“The ethics of human concerns are indivisibly bound with scientific
observations; human values and science cannot be separated.”
— Baruch S. Blumberg, M.D., Ph.D., in Nobel Prize acceptance speech
1967
baruch s. blumberg, m.d., ph.d., and his laboratory team identify the hepatitis B virus—
a major cause of primary liver cancer, the fifth most common cancer worldwide. Two years later,
with Irving Millman, Ph.D., he invents the first hepatitis B vaccine—the first vaccine capable
of preventing a human cancer. Blumberg would go on to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine in
1976; both Blumberg and Millman were elected to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1993.
“I think it’s fair to say that Barry prevented more cancer deaths than any person who’s ever lived,”
Chief Scientific Officer Jonathan Chernoff, M.D., Ph.D., told The Washington Post in 2011.
Baruch Blumberg and wife Jean celebrate the
news of his Nobel Prize in 1976.
1970
Reimann (left), Institute board chair Anthony Whitaker,
and Talbot at 1964 groundbreaking for new laboratories.
paul f. engstrom, m.d., joins American Oncologic Hospital as its
first chair of medical oncology. Educated at the University of Minnesota
Medical School and trained under B.J. Kennedy, M.D. (known as the
“Father of Medical Oncology”), he was one of the first trainees in
medical oncology in the country.
1 9 7 0 : The Public Health
Cigarette Smoking Act
passes Congress, banning
all TV and radio advertising
for cigarettes as of
January 1, 1971.
1 9 7 4 : First Lady Betty
Ford undergoes a mastectomy
and speaks publicly about breast
cancer.
1968
after 57 years in west philadelphia, American Oncologic Hospital opens in Fox Chase.
The new 55-bed hospital building’s innovative pagoda-style design receives accolades for providing
patients a soothing, sunlit environment—including balconies for each patient room. Architect
Vincent G. Kling had designed the Institute of Cancer Research’s home in Fox Chase 20 years earlier.
“His ideas paved the way for the next 30 years of cancer research and beyond.”
Hospital board chairman G. Morris Dorrance Jr., Dr. Talbot, Institute board
chairman G. Willing Pepper, and Hospital President Edward J. Roach on June 10, 1974,
the day they signed the papers uniting American Oncologic Hospital and the Institute for
Cancer Research
as Fox Chase
Cancer Center.
– Kathryn Prichard-Jones, M.D., of London’s Institute for Cancer Research
& Royal Marsden Hospital, writing about Knudson in 1999
1976
alfred g. knudson jr., m.d., ph.d., joins Fox Chase as director of the
Institute. Five years earlier, studying a rare childhood tumor called retinoblastoma, he had formulated the widely acclaimed “two-hit” theory of cancer causation. It explains the relationship between the hereditary and non-hereditary
forms of a cancer and predicted the existence of tumor-suppressor genes that
can restrain cancer cell growth. In 1986 the retinoblastoma gene became the
first tumor-suppressor gene to be cloned. Knudson’s now-confirmed theory
has advanced understanding of errors in the genetic program that turn normal
cells into cancer cells. Knudson was awarded an Albert Lasker Award for
Clinical Medical Research in 1998 and the 2004 Kyoto Prize in basic sciences.
1974
two years after the national cancer act
begins the “war on cancer,” American Oncologic
Hospital and the Institute for Cancer Research unite
to form Fox Chase Cancer Center. Later that year,
Fox Chase becomes one of the first institutions to
receive the National Cancer Institute’s elite designation
as a Comprehensive Cancer Center.
1975
canscreen, the first low-cost
individual screening program for the early
detection of cancer, begins at Fox Chase.
1 9 7 7 : The MRI scanner is developed,
five years after the CAT scanner.
Alfred G. Knudson Jr. and his
“two-hit” theory.
John R. Durant, Fox Chase’s president
from 1982 to 1988.
1980
melvin bosma, ph.d., discovers
a mouse strain with severe combined immune
deficiency (SCID). Since SCID mice have
no natural immunity and cannot reject tissue
transplants, they have become valuable research
tools for studying many diseases, including
cancer and HIV.
1977
construction of the center building
is completed. Initially referred to as “the link”
building because it connected the Institute for
Cancer Research and the Hospital, it provides a
new auditorium and cafeteria, where clinical and
research staff can meet.
Early Fox Chase Cancer Center logos:
circa 1970s (left) and circa 1980s (bottom).
1982
john r. durant, m.d.,
begins his term as president
of Fox Chase, creating an
academic clinical research
environment over the next
six years.
“If you find results that are important, that’s nice. If you find results that are correct, that’s even
nicer. And if you are satisfied in your work and can influence other
people to join in the effort to do good science, that’s important.”
– Irwin A. Rose, Ph.D., reacting to news of his Nobel Prize in 2004
late 1970s
fox chase’s irwin a. rose, ph.d., and collaborators Avram Hershko, M.D., Ph.D., and
Aaron Ciechanover, Ph.D., discover one of the cell’s most important cyclical processes: how
proteins are broken down and recycled. Their discoveries establish a new paradigm in biology and
form the basis for Velcade, a drug approved for multiple myeloma. The three men would go on to
receive the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2004.
Irwin A. Rose (right) receiving his Nobel Prize in Stockholm in 2004.
1986
fox chase begins establishing partnerships with community
hospitals in the region. Fox Chase Cancer Center Partners now includes more than
20 hospitals in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. The program’s
goal is to raise the quality of cancer care in the community and increase the
number of patients enrolled in clinical trials.
1990
responding to the rise in the need for outpatient care,
Fox Chase builds a new outpatient facility, the West Building, to
consolidate service for patients. Its dramatic focal point, a 36-ton
marble sculpture by artist and patient Jay Dugan, quickly becomes
a familiar icon of Fox Chase. The sculpture’s three squared circles
symbolize the Center’s three primary missions: research, treatment,
and prevention.
“I wanted to convey the true beauty and devotion of the human interactions that happen
here, the people working to save lives and to give people desperately needed hope.”
The West Building , with Jay Dugan’s sculpture.
1988
robert c. young, m.d., head of the
National Cancer Institute’s medicine branch
and internationally known for his work in
the treatment of lymphoma and ovarian
cancer, becomes president of Fox Chase.
Throughout the next 19 years, Fox Chase
builds new facilities, recruits top talent,
and solidifies its standing as a national leader
in basic and cancer-prevention research.
Robert C. Young (above), Fox Chase’s president
from 1988 to 2007.
– sculptor Jay Dugan
“When we finish this project, almost everything we know about
disease prevention, genetics, and even public health will change.
It is that important.”
1 9 9 0 : San Luis Obispo, California, becomes the first city in
the world to ban indoor smoking at all public places. Philadelphia
would join the growing list of smoke-free cities in 2007.
1991
fox chase initiates its chemoprevention research program.
At the time, the concept of treating healthy individuals to
prevent cancer was not fully appreciated. Unrelated to chemotherapy, cancer chemoprevention uses medicines and nutrients
to help prevent cancer, just as medicines help reduce heart
disease by lowering cholesterol and blood pressure.
1991
Mary Daly
— Kenneth H. Beutow, Ph.D., in 1992
1992
the national institutes of health names Fox Chase
one of four institutions chosen to analyze all genetic data for
the Human Genome Project—a massive international effort
to locate and identify every human gene. Directed by geneticist
Kenneth H. Buetow, Ph.D., the Center team also assembles part
of the genetic map and contributes to a database for researchers
worldwide.
mary daly, m.d., ph.d., establishes Fox Chase’s first family risk-assessment program,
with seed funds from the Margaret Dyson Foundation. Among the first of its kind in the country,
the program serves women with a family history of breast and ovarian cancer, offering
genetic testing and counseling, screening and follow-up, and the opportunity to take part
in prevention studies. The program provided a model for Fox Chase to establish similar riskassessment programs for gastrointestinal cancers, prostate cancer, and melanoma.
early 1990s
Joseph R. Testa.
fox chase scientist joseph r. testa, ph.d., discovers that a protein encoded by the AKT2 gene
is abundantly expressed in both ovarian and pancreatic cancers. This finding, and subsequent work, showed
that this protein was directly linked to these cancers and others. This work has provided fundamental
insight into how AKT activation contributes to tumor aggression and has driven the discovery of a number
of potential targets for future anti-cancer drugs.
1995
fox chase becomes one of the founding members of the National Comprehensive
Cancer Center Network, an alliance of the nation’s leading academic cancer centers designed to
ensure the highest-quality, most cost-effective cancer care based on state-of-the-art treatment
guidelines and outcomes research.
1993
Robert B. Perry, Fox Chase’s
first endowed chair holder.
a founding gift from the board
of directors establishes Fox Chase’s
first endowed chair, The Stanley P.
Reimann Endowed Chair in Oncology
Research. The inaugural chair holder is
Robert B. Perry, Ph.D., recognized for his
seminal discoveries about the molecular
mechanisms that control individual gene
activities, including the cell’s protein
assembly lines.
1996
to capitalize on new opportunities in genetics and molecular biology
and to accommodate expanding research programs, Fox Chase launches
the Prevention Campaign. By January
2000, trustees, friends, faculty, and
staff raise $39 million, enabling Fox
Chase to build a dedicated facility for cancer prevention services
and seeding multiple new research programs.
2000
the 120,000-square-foot
Cancer Prevention Pavilion opens.
Fox Chase nurses celebrating their Magnet status
as among the nation’s best.
The Cancer Prevention Pavilion.
1999
fox chase scientist dietmar j. kappes, ph.d.,
discovers a mouse with a mutation in a master regulator gene
controlling T cell fate. Six years later, he identifies the gene as
Th-POK, and later shows that its disregulation causes lymphoid
transformation. This finding is significant because it linked how
cells develop with how cancers develop. Understanding how
genes function in normal development is useful in exploring how
tumors begin.
2000
fox chase becomes the first
u.s. cancer center and the first
hospital in Pennsylvania to earn the
American Nurses Association Magnet
Award for Nursing Excellence. Renewed in 2004 and 2008, Magnet status
certifies that Fox Chase meets the gold standard in nursing. Fox Chase is one
of only 37 organizations in the world that has earned the designation three
times in a row.
“What makes Fox Chase unique is the sense of common mission among all employees. In a cancer
center that sees many patients a day, we are constantly reminded of our singular emphasis.”
— Fox Chase virologist Glenn Rall, Ph.D., to The Scientist
2001
fox chase becomes the first cancer center in the world to use magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) to design more precise radiation treatment plans for cancer patients, setting a new standard for therapy.
In the last decade, the department of radiation oncology has pioneered the use of several state-of-the-art
technologies, including the bat ultrasound, CT on Rails, and Calypso® beacons. All these advanced technologies
are used to help guide the radiation and reduce side effects.
2003
the results of clinical trial gynecologic oncology group (gog) 158 are published
in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The trial, led by Fox Chase’s Robert F. Ozols, M.D., Ph.D.,
demonstrated the efficacy of a new chemotherapy regimen combining paclitaxel (Taxol) and
carboplatin to treat women with ovarian cancer. Finding that the regimen was less toxic and easier
to administer—cutting treatments from 24 hours to 4 hours—the study established a new standard
of care used by oncologists worldwide. In 2009, GOG 158 was nominated for the ImpACT trials
list, a compendium of the most important clinical trials in medicine and public health since 1948.
2007
2004
fox chase is listed at #1 in The Scientist’s national
ranking of “Best Places to Work in Academia for Postdocs.”
Fox Chase’s postdoctoral program, which consistently
ranks among the top 15 “Best Places to Work” in the
nation, includes one of the longest-running National
Cancer Institute training grants in the country.
michael v. seiden, m.d., ph.d., becomes president
and chief executive officer of Fox Chase. A board-certified
medical oncologist, Seiden previously led the gynecologic
cancer program at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center
and was chief of the clinical research unit in Massachusetts
General Hospital’s division of cancer medicine.
2 0 0 7 : The National Cancer Institute estimates there are
11.7 million cancer survivors in the United States alone.
In 1971, the number of cancer survivors was three million.
2009
fox chase concludes its centennial campaign, begun in
2003. Donors contribute more than $115 million to support research,
clinical care, and new facilities; $5 million of that total comes from
campaign chair Kenneth Weg and his wife Carol.
2009
2008
fox chase launches the keystone programs in Collaborative
Discovery. The programs bring the power of team-based science to bear
on some of the most significant questions in cancer research, with the goal
of accelerating medical progress against cancer. At the heart of each program is a group of scientists, clinicians, and other research professionals
seeking to focus their shared expertise on an important cancer challenge.
the culmination of 20 years of leadership in the field,
Fox Chase opens the region’s first comprehensive Women’s Cancer
Center. The center brings together leading oncologists in breast
and gynecologic cancers to provide women with state-of-the-art care
and support. Fox Chase is thought to be the first NCI-designated
cancer center to unify its research and treatment approaches in an
entity that addresses the full spectrum of women’s cancers.
“In the post-genomic era, the next wave of major advances
against disease will depend on self-assembled teams of
researchers from different fields effectively pooling their skills
and resources. The Keystone Programs were designed
specifically to encourage and support that kind of creative
team-based science.”
– Michael V. Seiden, M.D., Ph.D.
2010
on may 8, a newly expanded
building that supports Fox Chase
research and treatment is dedicated in
honor of a former Center president.
The Robert C. Young, M.D., Pavilion
subsumes the 108,000 square feet of
the former Cancer Prevention Pavilion.
With 116,000 square feet of new space,
the building is the largest on the Fox
Chase campus.
2009
fox chase launches the institute for personalized medicine,
focusing on analyzing patients’ genetics and customizing treatments at
an unprecedented level. Unlike the traditional method of delivering care,
this approach will base treatment on the genetic makeup of an individual
patient’s tumor.
“It’s impossible to overstate this inflection point that cancer medicine is
entering. The whole premise of how cancers are treated becomes not
the tissue of origin, or how it looks under a microscope, how it looks to the
surgeon, how it looks to the pathologist, but how it looks to the DNA sequencer.”
– Jeff Boyd, Ph.D., vice president, molecular medicine
Fox Chase Cancer Center
mission: to prevail over cancer, marshaling heart and mind in bold scientific
discovery, pioneering prevention, and compassionate care.
Located in northeast Philadelphia, Fox Chase Cancer Center is one of the leading cancer research
and treatments centers in the United States. Founded in 1904 as one of the nation’s first cancer
hospitals, Fox Chase was also among the first institutions to be designated a National Cancer Institute
Comprehensive Cancer Center in 1974.
Fox Chase researchers have won the highest awards in their fields, including two Nobel Prizes,
a Kyoto Prize in basic sciences, a Lasker Clinical Research Award, an Albert Szent-Györgyi Prize
for Progress in Cancer Research, American Cancer Society Medals of Honor, memberships in
the National Academy of Sciences, and induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Fox Chase physicians are also routinely recognized in national rankings, and the Center’s nursing
program has received the Magnet status for excellence three consecutive times.
Today, Fox Chase conducts a broad array of nationally competitive basic, translational, and clinical
research, with special programs in cancer prevention, detection, survivorship, and community outreach.
For more information about Fox Chase, visit the Center’s web site at www.foxchase.org.
To learn how you can support Fox Chase, call us at 215-728-2745.
Board of Directors
Chairman
David G. Marshall
Vice Chairmen
W. Thacher Brown
Louis E. Della Penna Sr.
Thomas W. Hofmann
Margot W. Keith
Peter McCausland
Donald E. Morel Jr., Ph.D.
G. Morris Dorrance Jr.
The Hon. Dwight Evans
Edward A. Glickman
Michael J. Heller, Esq.
Geoffrey Kent
Philip E. Lippincott
Jill Michal
Edward J. Roach
Thomas Shenk, Ph.D.
Pamela Strisofsky
William Stulginsky
Members
William J. Avery
John W. Conway Jr.
Thomas R. Tritton, Ph.D.
Kenneth E. Weg
Jerry Wind, Ph.D.
Zane Wolf, Ph.D.
Members Emereti
Frank G. Binswanger Jr.
Ira R. Dolich
A.J. Gabriele
Nancy E. Goldy
Lawrence T. Hoyle Jr., Esq.
Jane G. Pepper
William S. Woods Jr.
Sustaining Members
Carolyn Aldigé
Jenne K. Britell, Ph.D.
Robert E. Brown Jr.
Valerie C. Ferguson
Argeris N. Karabelas, Ph.D.
Malcolmn D. Pryor
Ex Officio Members
Debra Sniger
Michael V. Seiden, M.D., Ph.D.
Design: Baseman Design Associates, www.basemandesign.com
Officers
Michael V. Seiden, M.D., Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Thomas S. Albanesi Jr.
Senior Vice President and
Chief Financial Officer
J. Robert Beck, M.D.
Senior Vice President, Chief Academic
Officer, Chief Medical Officer
Jonathan Chernoff, M.D., Ph.D. Gary J. Weyhmuller
Senior Vice President and
Senior Vice President and
Chief Scientific Officer
Chief Operating Officer
Paul F. Engstrom, M.D.
Robert G. Wilkens Jr.
Senior Vice President, Extramural Research Senior Vice President and
Program, Chief Network Officer & Medical Chief Development Officer
Director, Fox Chase Partner Program
Susan Tofani
Senior Vice President, Clinical Services
and Business Development
*as of April 2011