Yale cancer center: Past, present, and future (2006)

This special issue of the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine is composed of overviews of fundamental and clinical research contributions at a time when our scientific understanding of cancer biology is blossoming and has begun to generate large numbers of new, biologically based treatments. This process, referred to as “Translation,” in very large measure began at the Yale School of Medicine (YSM) 60 years ago. It is therefore quite fitting that this timely and comprehensive issue has been compiled during this period of unprecedented parallel growth in clinical and research facilities and translational activities.

Here at Yale, a four-story cancer hospital designed to set a new standard in multidisciplinary inpatient and outpatient creative clinical care is under construction. This state-of-the-art clinical facility will be accompanied by the expansion of interactive laboratories to be occupied by thematically linked teams of Yale Cancer Center (YCC) scientists.

This excitement builds on a long and rich history at YSM. The modern era of cancer chemotherapy was ushered in when Gilman, Goodman, and Lindskog used nitrogen mustard to treat a patient with lymphoma in 1942. In the 1950s and 1960s, researchers in the Department of Pharmacology were the first scientists to focus on cancer chemotherapy and drug development, and, in 1965, YSM established the first university-based Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Chemotherapy in the United States, a forerunner to what is now known as “Medical Oncology.” 

The pioneering work that was conducted during those early days of cancer research at Yale laid the foundation for our understanding of a number of key classes of anticancer drugs, including the antifolates, the fluoropyrimidines, the thiopurines and other purine analogs, and the deoxycytidine analogs, including cytarabine, and the alkylating agents. The development of these agents for the treatment of cancer represents a major achievement, and the success of those pioneering efforts can be attributed to the close collaboration and interaction between basic scientists, synthetic organic chemists, pharmacologists, and clinicians.

Important steps also initiated at Yale and extended internationally contributed heavily to the proof of principle that anti-cancer immunotherapy can be effective clinically and has great therapeutic potential. While clinical and translational research are the buzzwords of today, such interdisciplinary collaborative research has been conducted here at Yale for well over 60 years, and this tradition continues with even greater focus today.

Another major milestone was in 1974 when the YCC received designation by the National Cancer Center as a comprehensive cancer center. Yale’s was one of the country’s first university-based comprehensive cancer centers, and our center is one of 41 designated cancer centers in the United States. The YCC is a matrix organization that currently unites more than 240 members, representing 27 departments and four schools, into a highly interactive, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research environment that facilitates cancer-focused research. The overarching goals of the center are to enhance the ability to prevent, detect, diagnose, and treat cancer, and, to do so, there are eight different research programs within the center. In particular, significant efforts are directed toward developing innovative translational and clinical investigative programs in the areas of developmental therapeutics, immunotherapy, and combined modality treatments that combine chemotherapy and/or biologic agents with radiation therapy.

It is in this context that this issue fully devoted to translational cancer science is being published. As the YCC looks forward to continuing to contribute to the dramatic advances in scientifically based cancer care, its leadership expresses deep appreciation to the editors and authors of this especially timely publication.