The Cancer History Project

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Latest Episodes:

Roderic Pettigrew on a career as a “physicianeer” and the early days of the MRI: “You don’t make advances without technological innovation.” Feb 23, 2024

Show notes

In this conversation, Roderick Pettigrew speaks with Robert Winn, guest editor of The Cancer Letter and the Cancer History Project during Black History Month, about Pettigrew’s contributions to research, how he became an early self-taught expert on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or the MRI, as well as when he became founding director of National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Pettigrew is chief executive officer of Engineering Health (EnHealth) and inaugural dean for Engineering Medicine (EnMed) at Texas A&M University in partnership with Houston Methodist Hospital, and the Endowed Robert A. Welch Chair in Medicine and founding director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Winn is the director and Lipman Chair in Oncology at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, and senior associate dean for cancer innovation and professor of pulmonary disease and critical care medicine at VCU School of Medicine.

Former HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan on sinking RJR’s “Uptown,” a menthol brand for Black smokers Jan 19, 2024

Show notes

As part of a series as a guest editor of the Cancer History Project to commemorate the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health, Alan Blum speaks with Louis Sullivan, who was Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 1989 to 1993.

Alan Blum is professor and Gerald Leon Wallace M.D. Endowed Chair in Family Medicine at the University of Alabama, as well as the director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.

Throughout his career, Sullivan made smoking prevention a high priority, condemning the tobacco industry for targeting African Americans and calling on sports organizations to reject tobacco sponsorship.

In 1975, Sullivan was named founding dean and director of the Medical Education Program at Morehouse College. In 1981, the four-year Morehouse School of Medicine was established with Sullivan as dean and president.

In this interview, Sullivan speaks about growing up in the segregated South, his early years in medicine while living in Boston, and the medical community’s response to tobacco in the aftermath of the 1964 surgeon general’s report.

Read more and access the transcript on the Cancer History Project: https://cancerhistoryproject.com/article/former-hhs-secretary-louis-sullivan-recalls-sinking-rjrs-uptown-a-menthol-brand-for-black-smokers/

Don Shopland: Writing the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health Jan 05, 2024

Show notes

In 1964, the Office of the Surgeon General issued a report on smoking and health that ended a debate that had raged for decades—stating that cigarettes cause lung cancer and other diseases.

Sixty years later, Alan Blum, professor and Gerald Leon Wallace M.D. Endowed Chair in Family Medicine at the University of Alabama, as well as the director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, sits down with Donald S. Shopland, an original member of the staff of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General upon its formation in 1962.

Since 1962, Shopland has served as an editor of 17 reports of the surgeon general on smoking and health, as interim director of the Office on Smoking and Health for two years in the 1980s, and as an advisor on smoking and health at NCI. He retired in 2014.

You can read the transcript here.

How George Santos and Al Owens’s early Cytoxan studies led to standard-of-care therapy in BMT Nov 10, 2023

Show notes

George Santos, founder of Johns Hopkins University Bone Marrow Transplantation Program, pioneered many of the innovations used in bone marrow transplantation that are relevant today—but he didn’t get nearly as much credit as others working in the field.

Richard J. Jones, professor of oncology and medicine, director of the Bone Marrow Transplantation Program, and co-director, Hematologic Malignancies Program, at The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, spoke with the Cancer History Project about George Santos's legacy.

“Much of what we’re currently doing in bone marrow transplant internationally was developed by George,” Jones said.

A transcript of this conversation is available here.

Judith L. Pearson on how Mary Lasker made the National Cancer Act happen Sep 22, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, Judith L. Pearson, best-selling author and founder of A 2nd Act, speaks with Alexandria Carolan, associate editor with the Cancer History Project.

Delving deep into Mary Lasker’s role as the “catalytic agent” who worked behind the scenes through proxies to accomplish the goal of curing cancer, Pearson wrote “Crusade to Heal America: The Remarkable Life of Mary Lasker.”

“She just wanted to light the fire and then wanted everybody else to go to work to make it happen,” Pearson said to The Cancer Letter. “She would give them whatever resources were necessary, including some of her own money, to make sure that the right congressmen and senators held positions got reelected, or got elected, and then went into the appropriate committees.”

A transcript of this recording appears on the Cancer History Project.

Chris Lundy had one week to live; 52 years later, he is the longest living BMT recipient at the Hutch Sep 15, 2023

Show notes

At age 18, during basic training in Fort Polk, Louisiana, Chris Lundy slipped and broke his wrist.

At the hospital, the doctors set his wrist and ran some blood tests. What Lundy thought would be a simple visit turned into a series of months-long hospital stays.

Lundy was diagnosed with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, and his doctors sent him to Seattle, where he would become a patient of Donnall Thomas. Thomas would share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990 discoveries concerning organ and cell transplantation in the treatment of human disease.

Today, Lundy is the longest living recipient of an allogeneic transplant for aplastic anemia at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. He received the bone marrow transplant that saved his life in 1971.

In this interview, Chris and his brother, Jerry Lundy, speak with Dr. Deborah Doroshow, an oncologist at the Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Doroshow, who is also a historian of medicine, is a member of the editorial board of the Cancer History Project.

Who can fill Shelley Earp's shoes at UNC Lineberger? Sep 08, 2023

Show notes

What does it take to run an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center for 22 years? And what does it takes to recruit a successor?

In this episode, Shelton “Shelley” Earp talks about his plans to step down as director of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center effective in June 2024. He is joined by Norman "Ned" Sharpless, former director of UNC Lineberger as well as former NCI director and former acting FDA commissioner. Sharpless chairs the committee charged with finding Earp’s successor.

Earp has served as director between 1997 and 2018 and then again from 2018 on, both preceding and succeeding Sharpless in the UNC job.

This is a special edition of the Cancer History Project podcast focused a little more on the present—and the future.

Read more here: https://cancerletter.com/conversation-with-the-cancer-letter/20230908_1/

John Laszlo: Finding the cure for childhood leukemia and writing a book about it Aug 11, 2023

Show notes

John Laszlo, professor emeritus at Duke University Medical Center and former national vice president for research at the American Cancer Society, speaks with the Cancer History Project’s Alex Carolan and Paul Goldberg about his life, career, and his authoritative book, “The Cure of Childhood Leukemia: Into the Age of Miracles.”

When Laszlo, 92, joined the Acute Leukemia Service at NCI in 1956, the cure for childhood leukemia seemed beyond reach. He worked directly with Emil “Tom” Frei, and Emil J Freireich—early researchers and doctors of childhood leukemia at NCI.

Laszlo’s book is based on taped interviews of doctors and scientists whose work led to the cure of childhood leukemia. It is an essential primary source for anyone interested in oncology and its history, and is now available for free as a digital download on the Cancer History Project.

In 1937, Laszlo’s family fled Vienna as Jewish refugees. His mother, a psychiatrist who trained with Anna Freud, discovered she had breast cancer on the SS Île de France while the family journeyed to America. She died two years later.

His father, Daniel Laszlo, a physician who specialized in cardiovascular physiology, found a job in cancer research at Mount Sinai Hospital. He went on to study folate antagonists in mice—though folate antagonists hadn’t been characterized yet. The untested regimen was administered against his recommendation to none other than Babe Ruth.

A transcript of this recording is available on the Cancer History Project.

How CAR T cell therapy resulted in a complete remission in two subtypes of lymphoma Jun 02, 2023

Show notes

Marcus Humphrey, who was diagnosed with two subtypes of lymphoma in 2021, and his wife Mary Humphrey speak with Dr. Deborah Doroshow, an oncologist at the Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Doroshow, who is also a historian of medicine, is a member of the editorial board of the Cancer History Project and is guest editor during National Cancer Survivor Month this June.

Humphrey sought treatment at Medical University of South Carolina Hollings Cancer Center for a swelling that had grown exponentially on the right side of his neck. Two regimens of chemotherapy failed. Marcus Humphrey’s oncologist later said it was the worst case of lymphoma he had ever seen.

Humphrey was almost out of options—and his heavy tumor burden made doctors wary of CAR T-cell therapy. They weighed the risks and went for it.

After receiving treatment with CAR T cell therapy, and managing the side effects of neurotoxicity, cytokine release syndrome, and mobility issues—Humphrey’s scans are clear. He’s vacationing in Italy now, and was overlooking the Adriatic sea with his wife Mary during this conversation, available on the Cancer History Project.

Hagop Kantarjian on changing the course of leukemias from mostly incurable to mostly curable May 26, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, 2023 David Karnofsky Memorial Award winner Hagop Kantarjian discusses his long career developing novel therapies for several types of leukemia.

“This is why I consider that choosing leukemia was the best decision in my life,” Kantarjian said to The Cancer Letter. “Because within the span of one professional lifetime, we were able to change the full course of all the leukemias from mostly incurable to mostly curable.”

Reviewing his extensive career in leukemia research, Kantarjian discusses the high cost of drug prices, and his optimism that the U.S. will overcome healthcare disparities, and the many lessons he learned from his mentor, Emil J Freireich.

“It's very important to continue to challenge the standards, the accepted standards, and to try to create new knowledge and innovate outside the general herd mentality that exists at any point in time,” Kantarjian said.

Kantarjian spoke with Jacquelyn Cobb, reporter with The Cancer Letter. A transcript of the conversation appears on The Cancer History Project.

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