Inside information on cancer research and drug development

Inside information on cancer research and drug development

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act, President Biden thanked “the limitless ingenuity of the world’s finest nurses, physicians, and researchers.” Few better exemplify this ingenuity than Fox Chase’s Beatrice Mintz, whose obituary is published in this week’s issue. The Cancer History Project commemorates both this anniversary and the legacy of Beatrice Mintz.

Ned Sharpless: “I believe that our focus on this important history—especially how our nation’s investment in cancer science has transformed the way we understand and confront the disease—has provided inspiration and direction in a time of unrest and upheaval and uncertainty.”

President Biden: “After decades of investment and innovation—and because of the limitless ingenuity of the world’s finest nurses, physicians, and researchers—today we have a much more sophisticated understanding of how best to fight cancer.  Thanks to new treatments and insights that could not have been imagined in generations past, the overall cancer death rate in the United States has declined steadily since the early 1990s, with more dramatic declines in the past few years.”

This was the first successful work of its kind. Very few labs at the time were attempting to perform experiments on mammalian embryos. That required new technology. I came from a do-it-yourself family—you didn’t buy things that you could make—and I enjoyed the fact that I had to work out everything myself

Beatrice Mintz, PhD, a Fellow of the AACR Academy and a trailblazing pioneer in multiple fields of cancer biology, died January 3, 2022, at the age of 100. 

Born January 24, 1921, in New York, New York, Mintz graduated magna cum laude from Hunter College and earned a master’s degree in 1944 and doctorate in 1946 from the University of Iowa. Mintz received a Fulbright research fellowship at the Universities of Paris and Strasbourg in 1951.

Big questions. That’s what Beatrice Mintz, PhD, the former Jack Schultz Chair of Basic Science at Fox Chase Cancer Center, has dedicated her career to answering. Small questions, in her opinion, are not worth the time or effort. As a result of this philosophy—and through sheer force of personality—Mintz’s opus, according to Jonathan Chernoff, MD, Chief Scientific Officer at Fox Chase, contains the platforms of several fields, including developmental genetics, gene-transfer technology, epigenetics, and the tumor microenvironment.

Geneticist Beatrice Mintz, PhD, came to Fox Chase in 1960 with a doctorate in zoology from the University of Iowa, time spent teaching at the University of Chicago, and an interest in asking what she called “big questions.” In her research, she developed mouse models that allowed scientists to identify links between development and cancer. Her work, for which she received numerous awards, also allowed scientists to explore the biology of cancer over an animal’s lifetime. She is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of developmental genetics and its relation to cancer biology.

Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, first called “The Cancer Institute of New Jersey,” was born in 1993 as the result of a P20 planning grant that was awarded in 1992. In June of 2008, Rutgers Cancer Institute celebrated its 15 year anniversary of treating patients.

This column features the latest posts to the Cancer History Project by our growing list of contributors. 

The Cancer History Project is a free, web-based, collaborative resource intended to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act and designed to continue in perpetuity. The objective is to assemble a robust collection of historical documents and make them freely available. 

Access to the Cancer History Project is open to the public at CancerHistoryProject.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at @CancerHistProj.

Is your institution a contributor to the Cancer History Project? Eligible institutions include cancer centers, advocacy groups, professional societies, pharmaceutical companies, and key organizations in oncology. 

To apply to become a contributor, please contact admin@cancerhistoryproject.com.

Beatrice Mintz, PhD, pioneering researcher at Fox Chase, dies at 100

Lynn M. Schuchter elected ASCO president for 2023-2024; seven members elected to ASCO board of directors and nominating committee

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