Autobiography of YOU - Leaders, Faculty, Physicians, Researchers, Administration and More
in alphabetic order -
From:
George Canellos, M.D.
William Rosenberg Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School
Institute Physician Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Senior Physician Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Minou, I went into medicine as it seemed at the time when I was at Harvard College that the field would move up with new scientific ideas and the opportunity to see people get better from their illness whatever it may be. It was a challenging and exciting prospect which did not entail a business life as I imagined (my family was in the coffee importing business) which I did not wish to pursue. Oncology seemed like a field which needed improvement from surgery and radiation as it was clear to me that improvement would have to come from medicine. I was fortunate to serve military service at the National Cancer Institute, in Bethesda Maryland where exciting new treatments for hematologic cancers were being developed under Drs. Tom Frei and Jay Freireich who were pioneers in the field of medical oncology. There is no greater feeling of satisfaction than successfully treating a patient and thereby curing an illness which would otherwise be fatal by one’s skill, knowledge, experience, and hopefully a compassionate approach to the patient.
I have now been at DFCI since 1975 when I came to organize medical oncology. Those were embryonic times as DFCI, then known as the Sidney Farber CC, had 57 licensed beds in the Dana building with very few patients actually “owned” by the Center who could be transferred from the Brigham in patient service (that was before the Tower was completed) and the facilities were primitive there - in my opinion. In any event the beds were opened in 1976-7 and the census was low, low for a while with some anxiety on the part of our trustees. I spent some time as did Arthur Skarin going to other hospitals to speak and attract patients. It took at least 5 years to get the referral process going. We were blessed with very talented fellows and an emerging junior faculty with the likes of Bob Mayer and Craig Henderson, Lee Parker, Fred Li for example. After the appointment of Baruj Benacerraf as president and his subsequent award of the Nobel Prize our standing at Harvard and the community rose. Progressive growth in numbers of patients as well as protocols with innovation in approach to cancer followed through the 1980’s and 1990’s. I felt a great deal of satisfaction that the medical oncology staff became famous in their fields and were mostly trained here as fellows. I the field of lymphoma (my interest) we pioneered a number of advances including 1/autologous transplants with the immunology group 2/demonstration that high dose Methotrexate could effectively treat Central nervous system lymphoma 3/the IPI (international prognostic index) for large cell lymphoma Margaret Shipp 4/gemonic studies for molecular classification of lymphoma Margaret Shipp 5/demonstration that immunologic check points existed and could be successfully inhibited in Hodgkin Lymphoma Freeman, Shipp, and Armand 5/demonstration that Large granular Lymphocyte Lymphoma - leukemia could selectively inhibit red blood cell production Canellos 6/progress in allotransplatation of hematologic cancers Soiffer, Antin, Alyea, Koreth, Cutler, Ho to mention only that area of oncology. It has been a most gratifying experience both personally and professionally.
George Canellos
George Canellos, M.D.
William Rosenberg Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School
Institute Physician Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Senior Physician Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Minou, I went into medicine as it seemed at the time when I was at Harvard College that the field would move up with new scientific ideas and the opportunity to see people get better from their illness whatever it may be. It was a challenging and exciting prospect which did not entail a business life as I imagined (my family was in the coffee importing business) which I did not wish to pursue. Oncology seemed like a field which needed improvement from surgery and radiation as it was clear to me that improvement would have to come from medicine. I was fortunate to serve military service at the National Cancer Institute, in Bethesda Maryland where exciting new treatments for hematologic cancers were being developed under Drs. Tom Frei and Jay Freireich who were pioneers in the field of medical oncology. There is no greater feeling of satisfaction than successfully treating a patient and thereby curing an illness which would otherwise be fatal by one’s skill, knowledge, experience, and hopefully a compassionate approach to the patient.
I have now been at DFCI since 1975 when I came to organize medical oncology. Those were embryonic times as DFCI, then known as the Sidney Farber CC, had 57 licensed beds in the Dana building with very few patients actually “owned” by the Center who could be transferred from the Brigham in patient service (that was before the Tower was completed) and the facilities were primitive there - in my opinion. In any event the beds were opened in 1976-7 and the census was low, low for a while with some anxiety on the part of our trustees. I spent some time as did Arthur Skarin going to other hospitals to speak and attract patients. It took at least 5 years to get the referral process going. We were blessed with very talented fellows and an emerging junior faculty with the likes of Bob Mayer and Craig Henderson, Lee Parker, Fred Li for example. After the appointment of Baruj Benacerraf as president and his subsequent award of the Nobel Prize our standing at Harvard and the community rose. Progressive growth in numbers of patients as well as protocols with innovation in approach to cancer followed through the 1980’s and 1990’s. I felt a great deal of satisfaction that the medical oncology staff became famous in their fields and were mostly trained here as fellows. I the field of lymphoma (my interest) we pioneered a number of advances including 1/autologous transplants with the immunology group 2/demonstration that high dose Methotrexate could effectively treat Central nervous system lymphoma 3/the IPI (international prognostic index) for large cell lymphoma Margaret Shipp 4/gemonic studies for molecular classification of lymphoma Margaret Shipp 5/demonstration that immunologic check points existed and could be successfully inhibited in Hodgkin Lymphoma Freeman, Shipp, and Armand 5/demonstration that Large granular Lymphocyte Lymphoma - leukemia could selectively inhibit red blood cell production Canellos 6/progress in allotransplatation of hematologic cancers Soiffer, Antin, Alyea, Koreth, Cutler, Ho to mention only that area of oncology. It has been a most gratifying experience both personally and professionally.
George Canellos
From:
Anthony V. D’Amico, M.D., Ph.D.
Eleanor Theresa Walters Distinguished Chair in Radiation Oncology
Chief of Genitourinary Radiation Oncology
Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Harvard Medical School
Here is my story Minou,
My introduction to medicine was born along side the death bed of loved one whose life ended early (40's) due to breast cancer. The care she received was expert but not compassionate and as MIT undergraduate in physics at the time, I wondered why a doctor would be expert, but not caring. While I had no intellectual interest in medicine with my passion for discovery driven toward the quantitative sciences, I had compassion. I decided to cross register in two courses at Harvard Medical School in Anatomy and Histology out of curiosity as to what goes into the "making" of a doctor. The instructors (Ferrris Jenkins and Daniel Goodenough) were expert but also compassionate and the students equally so. I realized that the doctor I had met who cared for my loved one was the exception and not the rule and that I belonged in family of those who serve others by sharing both their compassion and expertise.
Thank you Minou for allowing me this opportunity
Anthony
Anthony V. D’Amico, M.D., Ph.D.
Eleanor Theresa Walters Distinguished Chair in Radiation Oncology
Chief of Genitourinary Radiation Oncology
Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Harvard Medical School
Here is my story Minou,
My introduction to medicine was born along side the death bed of loved one whose life ended early (40's) due to breast cancer. The care she received was expert but not compassionate and as MIT undergraduate in physics at the time, I wondered why a doctor would be expert, but not caring. While I had no intellectual interest in medicine with my passion for discovery driven toward the quantitative sciences, I had compassion. I decided to cross register in two courses at Harvard Medical School in Anatomy and Histology out of curiosity as to what goes into the "making" of a doctor. The instructors (Ferrris Jenkins and Daniel Goodenough) were expert but also compassionate and the students equally so. I realized that the doctor I had met who cared for my loved one was the exception and not the rule and that I belonged in family of those who serve others by sharing both their compassion and expertise.
Thank you Minou for allowing me this opportunity
Anthony
From:
Andrea Protti, Ph.D.
Pre-Clinical MRI Physicist
Lurie Family Imaging Center
Centre for Biomedical Imaging in Oncology
Research Associate, Harvard Medical School
In search of a simple life.
I was born in a small touristic town on the east north side of Italy where playing in the beach in the hot summer was everything that matter. Despite a worriless youth, I grew curious of physics and its application to medicine and this, rather than my talent in understanding equation (I leave that to brightest of us), made me to graduate in Physics at the University of Bologna.
Soon after I was to embark an adventure in London (UK), one of the best multicultural city you can find and where the agglomeration of a multitude of lives and customs well reflects both its strengths and weakness. Among the strengths, London is a vibrant environment where the research and in particular the medical research is especially important. New ideas, technologies and brilliant minds culminate in discoveries which were unimaginable only few years ago. London is certainly the pioneer European city in such matters as much as Boston is in the US. After 12 years of British life, completing an MSc and PHD, numerous travels around the world, meeting with hundreds of researcher, working in the top university and all the other steps that research can take you through, a new chapter started for my family and I in Boston.
Boston and the American life surprised me from the beginning on some extent. The city is certainly a beautiful place to live with medical research as it’s beating heart, life is easy, people are polite and generally very well educated but yet customs are very much dissimilar to those in Europe. Capitalism is very much felt in every aspect of life in particular in the health and education system and although well accepted from the majority of people, it is a change of mentality not always easy to embrace. Nevertheless, if I have to name one aspect of this society I appreciate the most, it would certainly be the meritocratic environment established in medical research and the quality of the discoveries that follow it. We would be blessed if only a fraction of the latter was generated in my native country.
I conclude saying that living far from parents and all-life friends takes away a lot in term of personal emotions and the time passed here is time lost somewhere else, but Boston and in particular places like Dana-Farber that dedicate time and resources to the fight of cancer, are certainly environment which worth to support and live for.
Andrea Protti
Andrea Protti, Ph.D.
Pre-Clinical MRI Physicist
Lurie Family Imaging Center
Centre for Biomedical Imaging in Oncology
Research Associate, Harvard Medical School
In search of a simple life.
I was born in a small touristic town on the east north side of Italy where playing in the beach in the hot summer was everything that matter. Despite a worriless youth, I grew curious of physics and its application to medicine and this, rather than my talent in understanding equation (I leave that to brightest of us), made me to graduate in Physics at the University of Bologna.
Soon after I was to embark an adventure in London (UK), one of the best multicultural city you can find and where the agglomeration of a multitude of lives and customs well reflects both its strengths and weakness. Among the strengths, London is a vibrant environment where the research and in particular the medical research is especially important. New ideas, technologies and brilliant minds culminate in discoveries which were unimaginable only few years ago. London is certainly the pioneer European city in such matters as much as Boston is in the US. After 12 years of British life, completing an MSc and PHD, numerous travels around the world, meeting with hundreds of researcher, working in the top university and all the other steps that research can take you through, a new chapter started for my family and I in Boston.
Boston and the American life surprised me from the beginning on some extent. The city is certainly a beautiful place to live with medical research as it’s beating heart, life is easy, people are polite and generally very well educated but yet customs are very much dissimilar to those in Europe. Capitalism is very much felt in every aspect of life in particular in the health and education system and although well accepted from the majority of people, it is a change of mentality not always easy to embrace. Nevertheless, if I have to name one aspect of this society I appreciate the most, it would certainly be the meritocratic environment established in medical research and the quality of the discoveries that follow it. We would be blessed if only a fraction of the latter was generated in my native country.
I conclude saying that living far from parents and all-life friends takes away a lot in term of personal emotions and the time passed here is time lost somewhere else, but Boston and in particular places like Dana-Farber that dedicate time and resources to the fight of cancer, are certainly environment which worth to support and live for.
Andrea Protti