Collaborator and builder
Institute researchers William Hahn, MD, PhD (left), and Dan George, MD (center), often confer with their mentor, Philip Kantoff, MD, about findings in the field.
An ability to establish and nurture strong relationships with partner institutions and benefactors are two more keys to thriving as a modern-day medical leader, and Kantoff scores highly in these areas as well. His approach provides a model for how the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center should work. He has formed strong collaborations with other prostate cancer specialists in the area such as Jerome Richie, MD, and Anthony D'Amico, MD, PhD, of BWH; Matthew Smith, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital; Steven Balk, MD, PhD, and Glenn Bubley, MD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and many others. All are now teaming with the Lank Center on research projects funded by the SPORE grant.
Patients who are both grateful for the Kantoff team's care and in a position to help Dana-Farber financially have also played a significant role in the growth of his department. In 2000 alone, three prostate cancer survivors treated by him — Arthur Gelb, ScD, Gerhard "Gerry" Andlinger, and John William Poduska Sr. — all gave major gifts with their families to aid DFCI's genitourinary cancer investigations.
"In every area of prostate cancer research, he [Kantoff] has developed and nurtured networks that have helped expand the scope of his program," explains William Sellers, MD, another Kantoff recruit. Sellers directs the Arthur and Linda Gelb Center for Translational Research in Genitourinary Oncology at DFCI, which works within the auspices of the Lank Center and focuses on the genetic events leading to prostate and other cancers.
"The Gelb Center was in part initiated by Phil's conversations with Arthur Gelb and their joint desire to see what could be done to provide an infrastructure for conducting clinical trials and basic science in a more sophisticated way," Sellers relates. "That was the original vision, and it was the long-standing relationship Phil has developed with Jerome Richie and the Department of Urology at BWH that helped bring it all together. In less than two years, we've enlisted 1,500 patients in whom we are studying possible links between genes and cancer."
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