Father of chemotherapy

The use of chemotherapy to treat cancer began at the start of the 20th century with attempts to narrow the universe of chemicals that might affect the disease by developing methods to screen chemicals using transplantable tumors in rodents. It was, however, four World War II–related programs, and the effects of drugs that evolved from them, that provided the impetus to establish in 1955 the national drug development effort known as the Cancer Chemotherapy National Service Center. The ability of combination chemotherapy to cure acute childhood leukemia and advanced Hodgkin's disease in the 1960s and early 1970s overcame the prevailing pessimism about the ability of drugs to cure advanced cancers, facilitated the study of adjuvant chemotherapy, and helped foster the national cancer program. Today, chemotherapy has changed as important molecular abnormalities are being used to screen for potential new drugs as well as for targeted treatments. [Cancer Res 2008;68(21):8643–53] In the early 1900s, the famous German chemist Paul Ehrlich set about developing drugs to treat infectious diseases. He was the one who coined the term “chemotherapy” and defined it as the use of chemicals to treat disease. He was also the first person to document the effectiveness of animal models to screen a series of chemicals for their potential activity against diseases, an accomplishment that had major ramifications for cancer drug development. In 1908, his use of the rabbit model for syphilis led to...

“No one who can stand alone by himself should be the servant of another.” Paracelsus, Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, the “father of chemistry and the reformer of materia medica,” the “Luther of Medicine,” the “godfather of modern chemotherapy,” the founder of medicinal chemistry, the founder of modern toxicology, a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, Martin Luther, and Nicholas Copernicus, was born near or in the village of Einsiedeln near Zurich, Switzerland, on 10 or 14 November 1493. His father, Wilhelm Bombast von Hohenheim, “was the impoverished scion of a noble family of Suabia.” He was a physician and an alchemist who “had married a Swiss girl and practised medicine on the pilgrims' road that leads to the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln.” In 1502, following the death of his mother, the family moved to the mining town of Villach in Carinthia in southern Austria, where the father became the municipal physician and also taught chemistry. The father combined his interests in chemistry and medicine with his patients' experiences in the mines and in the smelting plants and became an expert in occupational medicine. The young Paracelsus, headstrong, stubborn, and independent, grew up in a home environment where chemistry and biology were paramount and he learned a great deal from his father, who became his role model. He decided he wanted to be a physician/chemist like his father. Paracelsus grew up during a period of Renaissance humanism when most...

Please note that some translations using Google Translate may not be accurately represented and downloaded documents cannot be translated. Dana-Farber assumes no liability for inaccuracies that may result from using this third-party tool, which is for website translation and not clinical interactions. You may request a • • Give Now • • Please note that some translations using Google Translate may not be accurately represented and downloaded documents cannot be translated. Dana-Farber assumes no liability for inaccuracies that may result from using this third-party tool, which is for website translation and not clinical interactions. You may request a • Led Dana-Farber from 1973-1980 Emil "Tom" Frei III, MD, former physician-in-chief of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has died. His work helped bring about the first complete cures for pediatric leukemia patients and led to more effective treatments for adult malignancies ranging from breast cancer to bone cancer. Dr. Frei, 89, died on April 30. With his colleague and near-namesake Emil Freireich, MD, of the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Frei became known as the "father of combination chemotherapy" for demonstrating in the 1950s and 1960s that treatment with multiple chemotherapy agents could produce lasting remissions in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). At the time, this disease had been uniformly fatal, and single chemotherapy drugs could only bring it into temporary remission. Today, ...

The father of modern chemotherapy is Friedrich Berchtesgaden, who was born in 1814 and died in 1898. He was a doctor who developed chemotherapy and, in particular, the use of irradiation to treat cancer. How Was Cancer Treated In The 1960s Cancer was treated in the 1960s in a variety of ways. Some doctors used surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Other doctors used pills and injections. What Was The Biggest Breakthrough In Chemotherapy The biggest breakthrough in chemotherapy was the development of chemotherapy that is specific to the cancer. This allowed doctors to better target the cancer and make it less aggressive. What Happens If You Have Cancer And No Insurance If you have cancer and no insurance, you may have to go through a lot of hard times. You may have to go to the hospital, you may have to go through chemotherapy, and you may have to go through surgery. But, you also may have to find new ways to live and to work. What Year Did Chemotherapy Come Out Chemotherapy was first used in the 1940s to treat cancer. Who Is The Founder Of Chemotherapy Chemotherapy is a type of treatment that is used to kill cancer cells. It is a treatment that is usually given to people who have been diagnosed with cancer. Chemotherapy is also used to treat people who have been treated with other types of cancer. Who Is The Father Of Chemotherapy Chemotherapy is a treatment that uses drugs to kill cancer cells. The most common chemotherapy drugs are called chemotherapy drugs. Is Chemother...

A major breakthrough in cancer treatment was the development of chemotherapy in the 1940s. The first chemical noted for its anti-cancer effects were nitrogen mustards. Dr. Jane Cooke Wright played a fundamental role in this story. During her career she would break multiple race and gender barriers and become one of the most distinguished physician-scientists in modern medicine. In fact, her work revolutionized cancer research and how physicians treat cancer. Born in New York City in 1919, Jane Cooke Wright was the first of two daughters born to Corrine (Cooke) and Louis Tompkins Wright. Her father was one of the first African American graduates of Harvard Medical School, and he set a high standard for his daughters.Dr. Louis Wright was the first African American doctor appointed to a staff position at a municipal hospital in New York City and, in 1929, became the city’s first African American police surgeon. He also established the Cancer Research Center at Harlem Hospital. Jane Wright graduated with honors from New York Medical College in 1945. She interned at Bellevue Hospital from 1945 to 1946, serving nine months as an assistant resident in internal medicine. Chemotherapy was still mostly experimental at that time. At Harlem Hospital her father had already re-directed the focus of foundation research to investigating anti-cancer chemicals. Dr. Louis Wright worked in the lab and Dr. Jane Wright would perform the patient trials. In 1949, the two began testing a new chemi...

×Top Health Categories • Coronavirus Disease COVID-19 • Gastrointestinal Health • Artificial Intelligence • Heart Disease • Mpox • High Blood Pressure • Allergies • Lung Cancer • Alzheimer's & Dementia • Mental Health • Arthritis & Rheumatology • Pregnancy • Breast Cancer • Type 1 Diabetes • Cold, Flu & Cough • Type 2 Diabetes • Diet & Nutrition • Sexual Health • Eating Disorders • Sleep • Eye Health • By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MD Reviewed by Chemotherapy was first developed at the beginning of the 20th century, although it was not originally intended as a cancer treatment. During World War II, it was discovered that people exposed to nitrogen mustard developed significantly reduced white blood cell counts. This finding led researchers to investigate whether mustard agents could be used to halt the growth of rapidly dividing cells such as cancer cells. In the 1940s, two prominent Yale pharmacologists, Alfred Gilman and Louis Goodman examined the therapeutic effects of mustard agents in treating lymphoma. First, they established lymphomas in mice and showed that the tumors could be treated with mustard agents. Then, together with a thoracic surgeon called Gustav Linskog, they injected a less volatile form of mustard gas called mustine (nitrogen mustard) into a patient who had nonHodgkin's lymphoma. The scientists found that the patients tumour masses were significantly reduced for a few weeks after treatment and although the patient had to return to receive more chemotherapy, t...