From the President
The year 1947 was noteworthy in both science and society. That February, Edwin Land demonstrated the first instant camera to an industry meeting in New York. In April, Jackie Robinson became the first African American to break Major League Baseball's color barrier. August of '47 brought the independence of Pakistan and India. In October, test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to exceed the speed of sound in level flight. The Nobel Prize in Medicine that year was awarded for the discovery of how a sugar-like substance called glycogen is broken down and stored by the body for energy.
In the health sciences, 1947 saw the creation of the world's first independent organization dedicated solely to the treatment and scientific study of cancer in children. That organization, the Children's Cancer Research Foundation, has evolved from a small basement laboratory at Children's Hospital Boston into the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute – bolstered along the way by the Jimmy Fund and other critical support.
As it marks its 60th anniversary, Dana-Farber remains a leader in a field where the degree and pace of change have been almost unrivaled. Primitive digital computers, for example, existed in 1947; long-term cures for a host of childhood and adult cancers did not. Now, thanks to breakthroughs at Dana-Farber and elsewhere, most cancers can be treated, and the outlook for patients has never been brighter.
This issue of Paths of Progress looks at some of the progress in research and patient care that has occurred over the course of the Institute's history and examines initiatives currently underway. Exciting as today's efforts are, their true value is as a springboard for advances yet to come.
Edward J. Benz Jr., MD
President, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
