Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a

cancer treatment Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, targeted therapy (including immunotherapy such as monoclonal antibody therapy) and synthetic lethality, most commonly as a series of separate treatments (e.g. ...

and research institution in the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle A ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 52

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

–designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers. Its main campus is located at 1275

York Avenue York Avenue and Sutton Place are the names of a relatively short north-south thoroughfare in the Yorkville, Lenox Hill, and Sutton Place neighborhoods of the East Side of Manhattan, in New York City. York Avenue runs from 59th to 92nd Streets ...

, between 67th and 68th streets, in

. According to U.S. News & World Report 2021-2022 Best Hospitals, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) has been ranked as the number two hospital for cancer care in the nation.

History

New York Cancer Hospital (1884–1934)

Memorial Hospital was founded on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 1884 as the

New York Cancer Hospital The New York Cancer Hospital (NYCH) on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City was a cancer treatment and research institution founded in 1884. The building was located at 455 Central Park West between West 105th and 106th Streets, and ...

by a group that included John Jacob Astor III and his wife Charlotte. The hospital appointed as an attending surgeon William B. Coley, who pioneered an early form of immunotherapy to eradicate tumors. Rose Hawthorne, daughter of author

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...

, trained there in the summer of 1896 before founding her own order, Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. In 1899, the hospital was renamed General Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases. In 1902,

Arabella Huntington Arabella Duval Huntington (née Yarrington; 1850/1851 – September 16, 1924) was an American philanthropist and once known as the richest woman in the country. She was the force behind the art collection that is housed at the Huntington Librar ...

made a $100,000 (approximately $3 million in 2018) bequest in memory of her late husband

Collis Potter Huntington Collis Potter Huntington (October 22, 1821 – August 13, 1900) was an American industrialist and railway magnate. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker) who invested i ...

to establish the first cancer research fund in the country, the Huntington Fund for Cancer Research. Around 1910 James Ewing, a professor at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

's medical college, established a collaboration with Memorial Hospital with the help and funding of industrialist and philanthropist James Douglas, who gave $100,000 to endow twenty beds for clinical research, equipment for working with

radium Radium is a chemical element with the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rathe ...

, and a clinical laboratory for that purpose. Douglas' enthusiasm and funding for development of

radiation therapy Radiation therapy or radiotherapy, often abbreviated RT, RTx, or XRT, is a therapy using ionizing radiation, generally provided as part of cancer treatment to control or kill malignant cells and normally delivered by a linear accelerator. Radi ...

for cancer inspired Ewing to become one of the pioneers in developing this treatment. Ewing soon took over effective leadership of clinical and laboratory research at Memorial. In 1916 the hospital was renamed again, dropping "General" to become known simply as Memorial Hospital. The first fellowship training program in the US was created at Memorial in 1927, funded by the Rockefellers. In 1931 the then-most-powerful 900k-volt

X-ray tube An X-ray tube is a vacuum tube that converts electrical input power into X-rays. The availability of this controllable source of X-rays created the field of radiography, the imaging of partly opaque objects with penetrating radiation. In contrast ...

was put into use in radiation-based cancer treatment at Memorial; the tube had been built by

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...

over several years. In 1931 Ewing was formally appointed president of the hospital, a role he had effectively played until then, and was featured on the cover of ''Time'' magazine as "Cancer Man Ewing"; the accompanying article described his role as one of the most important cancer doctors of his era. He worked at the Memorial until his retirement, in 1939. Under his leadership, Memorial became a model for other cancer centers in the United States, combining patient care with clinical and laboratory research, and it was said of him that "the relationship of Ewing to the Memorial Hospital can best be expressed in the words of Emerson, 'Every institution is but the lengthening shadow of some man.' Dr. Ewing is the Memorial Hospital".

Memorial Hospital and the Sloan Kettering Institute (1934–1980)

In 1934,

John D. Rockefeller Jr. John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist, and the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in M ...

donated land on

for a new location. Two years later, he granted Memorial Hospital $3,000,000 and the hospital began their move across town. Memorial Hospital officially reopened at the new location in 1939. In 1945, the chairman of General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan, donated $4,000,000 to create the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research through his Sloan Foundation, and Charles F. Kettering, GM's vice president and director of research, personally agreed to oversee the organization of a cancer research program based on industrial techniques. The originally independent research institute was built adjacent to Memorial Hospital. In 1948 Cornelius P. Rhoads became the director of Memorial. Rhoads had run

chemical weapons A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a ...

programs for the US army in World War II, and had been involved in the work that led to the discovery that nitrogen mustards could potentially be used as cancer drugs. He fostered a collaboration between Joseph H. Burchenal, a clinician at Memorial and Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings at Burroughs Wellcome, who had discovered 6 MP; the collaboration led to the development and eventual wide use of this cancer drug. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s

Chester M. Southam Chester Milton Southam (October 4, 1919 – April 15, 2002) was an immunologist and oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Cornell University Medical College; he went to Thomas Jefferson University in 1971 and worked there unti ...

conducted pioneering

clinical research Clinical research is a branch of healthcare science that determines the safety and effectiveness ( efficacy) of medications, devices, diagnostic products and treatment regimens intended for human use. These may be used for prevention, treatm ...

on virotherapy and cancer immunotherapy at MSK; however he conducted his research on people without their informed consent. He did this to patients under his care or others' care, and to prisoners. In 1963 some doctors objected to the lack of consent in his experiments and reported him to the Regents of the

University of the State of New York The University of the State of New York (USNY, ) is the state of New York's governmental umbrella organization for both public and private institutions in New York State. The "university" is not an educational institution: it is, in fact, a lic ...

which found him guilty of fraud, deceit, and unprofessional conduct, and in the end he was placed on probation for a year. Southam's research experiments and the case at the Regents were followed in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. In 1960, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center was formed as a new corporation to coordinate the two institutions; John Heller, the former director of the National Cancer Institute was named its president. At the end of the 1960s, as the field of

pediatric oncology Childhood cancer is cancer in a child. About 80% of childhood cancer cases can be successfully treated thanks to modern medical treatments and optimal patient care. However, only about 10% of children diagnosed with cancer reside in high-income cou ...

began seeing success in treating children with cancer, Memorial opened an

outpatient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health care ...

pediatric day hospital, partly to deal with the growing number of cancer survivors. In the early 1970s, Burchenal and Benno Schmidt, a professional investor and trustee of MSK, were appointed to the presidential panel that initiated the U.S. federal government's

War on Cancer The "war on cancer" is the effort to find a cure for cancer by increased research to improve the understanding of cancer biology and the development of more effective cancer treatments, such as targeted drug therapies. The aim of such efforts is t ...

in the early 1970s. When Congress passed the National Cancer Act of 1971 as part of that effort, Memorial Sloan Kettering was designated as one of only three Comprehensive Cancer Centers nationwide. In 1977, Jimmie C. Holland established a full-time psychiatric service at MSK dedicated to helping people with cancer cope with their disease and its treatment; it was one of the first such programs and was part of the creation of the field of

psycho-oncology Psycho-oncology is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of physical, psychological, social, and behavioral aspects of the cancer experience for both patients and caregivers. Also known as psychiatric oncology or psychosocial oncology, r ...

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (1980–present)

In 1980, Memorial Hospital and the Sloan-Kettering Institute formally merged into a singular entity under the name Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In 2000, former

NIH The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

director

Harold Varmus Harold Eliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an American Nobel Prize-winning scientist. He is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior associate at the New York Genome Center. He was ...

became the director of MSK. During his tenure, he helped build new facilities, strengthened the bond between MSK's clinical and research arms, and fostered collaborations with other institutions, including Weill-Cornell Medical College and Rockefeller University. In 2006, MSK opened the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Research Center, a 23-story building which houses more than 100 laboratories. In 2010, Craig B. Thompson, oncologist and researcher, was appointed MSK's president and CEO. The following year, MSK was rated the third most successful nonprofit in terms of FDA-approved drugs and vaccines, behind the National Institutes of Health and the University of California system. In 2012, Thompson appointed José Baselga as physician-in-chief, who directed the clinical side of MSK. That same year, a collaboration with IBM's Watson was announced with the goal of developing new tools and resources to better tailor diagnostic and treatment recommendations for patients. The director of SKI, the research arm of MSK, Joan Massagué was appointed in 2013. Baselga resigned in September 2018 after information came out regarding millions of dollars he received from pharmaceutical companies without disclosing a financial conflict of interest. In 2017, the

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

approved an MSK-developed immunotherapy, CAR-T, for certain applications in

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

and

lymphoma Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). In current usage the name usually refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include enla ...

. The FDA approved the first academic or commercial tumor identification test MSK-IMPACT in November 2018. MSK has expanded into regional sites including Westchester (NY), Commack (Long Island), Hauppauge (Long Island), Rockville Centre (Long Island), Nassau (Long Island), Bergen (NJ), Monmouth (NJ), and Basking Ridge (NJ). MSK currently employs over 1,200 physicians and treats patients with approximately 400 types of cancer annually. In April 2022, MSK announced a $50 million donation from The Starr Foundation to aid in expanding funding for basic cancer research and discovery science. The donation will establish The Starr Foundation programme for Discovery Science at the Sloan Kettering Institute, the goal of the institute is to drive next-generation cancer breakthroughs. In June 2022 A small drug trial is having a seismic impact in the world of oncology: After six months of an experimental treatment, tumors vanished in all 14 patients diagnosed with early stage rectal cancer who completed the study by the time it was published.

Associated facilities and programs

The Memorial Sloan Kettering Bendheim Integrative Medicine Center had occupied 1429 First Avenue on the corner of

East 74th Street 74th Street is an east–west street carrying pedestrian traffic and eastbound automotive/bicycle traffic in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs through the Upper East Side neighborhood (in ZIP code 10021, where it is known as East ...

in Manhattan. The former bank was built in the 1930s by Perkins and Will as architects. It was remodeled for use by Memorial Sloan Kettering in 1997. The Center for Image-Guided Intervention was opened in June 2010 in the Memorial Hospital building to oversee image guiding activities across MSK. In October 2012, the Sillerman Center for Rehabilitation was opened, moving rehabilitation out of Memorial Hospital and closer to the Rockefeller Outpatient Pavilion. The New York Proton Center opened in 2019 as a partnership between Memorial Sloan Kettering, Montefiore Health, and Mount Sinai Health. The center was the first Proton therapy center to open in New York State. The David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center opened at 530 East 74th Street between York Avenue and the FDR Drive January 2020. Perkins Eastman designed 750,000sq ft facility in collaboration with Ennead Architects, and ICRAVE.

Thornton Tomasetti Thornton Tomasetti (formerly the Thornton-Tomasetti Group, Thornton Tomasetti Engineers, Lev Zetlin & Associates, LZA Technology and Weidlinger Associates) is a global, 1,500-plus person scientific and engineering consulting firm. Services Tho ...

served as structural engineer, with

Jaros, Baum & Bolles Jaros, Baum & Bolles (JB&B) is an American MEP (Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) and consulting engineering firm founded in 1915 by Alfred L. Jaros, Jr. and Albert L. Baum. The firm is best known for high-rise projects, including One World Trad ...

providing MEP engineering.

India Center

The center launched its India facility in Chennai in Aug 2022, to provide tele medicine services in collaboration with iCiliniq to facilitate second opinion from the cancer specialists, without the need to travel to US facility.

Training

Approximately 1,700 medical residents and Fellows are in training at MSK. There are 575 postdoctoral researchers training at MSK labs and a combined 288 PhD and MD-PhD candidates. In 2004, the

Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Louis Vincent "Lou" Gerstner Jr. (born March 1, 1942) is an American businessman, best known for his tenure as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of IBM from April 1993 until 2002, when he retired as CEO in March and chairman in ...

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences was opened at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The first students graduated in 2012. As of January 2019, the dean of the graduate school is cell biologist Michael Overholtzer. The founding dean, serving for over a decade, was molecular biologist Ken Marians. The

Tri-Institutional MD–PhD Program The Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program is an MD-PhD program based in New York City that was formed by combining earlier MD-PhD programs that had their inceptions in 1972. The current version of the program, which is operated by Weill Cornell Medicin ...

is a partnership of MSKCC,

Weill Cornell Medicine The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is Cornell University's biomedical research unit and medical school located in Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York. Weill Cornell Medicine is affiliated with N ...

, and

The Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classified ...

. The dual degree program takes advantage of the close proximity of these three institutions for collaboration on biomedical research and medical training. MSKCC also has an academic partnership with Weill Cornell Medicine known as the

Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences The Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences (WCGS) (formerly known as the Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences) is a graduate college of Cornell University that was founded in 1952 as an academic partnership between t ...

Notable faculty

Presidents

* Selwyn M. Vickers, 2022– * Craig B. Thompson, 2010–2022 *

, 2000–2010 * Paul A. Marks, 1980–1999 *

Lewis Thomas Lewis Thomas (November 25, 1913 – December 3, 1993) was an American physician, poet, etymologist, essayist, administrator, educator, policy advisor, and researcher. Thomas was born in Flushing, New York and attended Princeton University ...

, 1973–1980 * David Walsh, 1971–1973 * Richard D. Vanderwarker, 1962–1971 * John R. Heller, 1960–1961

Others

James P. Allison James Patrick Allison (born August 7, 1948) is an American immunologist and Nobel laureate who holds the position of professor and chair of immunology and executive director of immunotherapy platform at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the Uni ...

* Kathryn V. Anderson * Murray Brennan * Carol L. Brown * Samuel Danishefsky *

Nori Dattatreyudu Dr. Dattatreyudu Nori is a noted Indian radiation oncologist. He was once named one of the top doctors in America for the treatment of cancers in women by the women's magazine ''Ladies' Home Journal''. Early life Dattatreyudu Nori was born in a ...

Lisa DeAngelis Lisa Marie DeAngelis is an American neuro-oncologist and Physician-in-Chief and Chief Medical Officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Early life and education DeAngelis was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut, to father Daniel De ...

* Jeffrey Drebin * Jimmie C. Holland * Maria Jasin *

David Kissane Professor David William Kissane, Order of Australia, AC (born 1951) is an Australian psychiatrist specialising in psychiatric oncology and palliative care. Since 2018, he has been the inaugural Chair in Palliative Medicine Research at the Universi ...

* Iris Long * Scott W. Lowe * Joan Massagué * Kenneth Offit * Lloyd Old * Nikola P. Pavletich *

Mark S. Ptashne Mark Ptashne (born June 5, 1940, in Chicago) is a molecular biologist. He is the Ludwig Chair of Molecular Biology at Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Ptashne grew up in Chicago. He earned his undergraduate degree at Re ...

James Rothman James Edward Rothman (born November 3, 1950) is an American biochemist. He is the Fergus F. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Yale University, the Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology at Yale School of Medicine, and the Director ...

* Alexander Rudensky * Valerie Rusch *

Charles Sawyers Charles L. Sawyers (born 1959) is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator who holds the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program (HOPP) at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) ...

Lorenz Studer Lorenz Studer (born March 5, 1966) is a Swiss biologist. He is the founder and director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He is a developmental biologist and neuroscientist who is pion ...

Reputation

In 2015

Charity Watch CharityWatch, formerly known as the American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Chicago, created in the United States by Daniel Borochoff in 1992, to provide information about charities' financial efficiency ...

rated Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center an "A". Heads of the charity received $2,107,939 to $2,639,669 salary/compensation from the charity. CEO Craig B. Thompson received $2,554,085 salary/compensation from the charity.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Hospitals established in 1884 Buildings and structures completed in 1973 Cancer hospitals Hospitals in Manhattan Institutions founded by the Rockefeller family Universities and colleges in Manhattan Charles F. Kettering Upper East Side Medical research institutes in New York (state) NCI-designated cancer centers 1884 establishments in New York (state)