Emil "Tom" Frei III (February 21, 1924 – April 30, 2013) was an American physician and oncologist. He was the former director and former physician-in-chief of the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also the Richard and Susan Smith Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Early life and education

Frei was born in 1924 in St. Louis. His family owned the

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

manufacturer Emil Frei & Associates. Frei completed an accelerated pre-med

Colgate University Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theologi ...

in 1944 after only 2 years of study and his medical degree from Yale University in 1948.

Career

He interned at

Firmin Desloge Hospital Firmin Desloge Hospital is a hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, opened in 1932 by the Jesuits of Saint Louis University and the Sisters of Saint Mary. Named for the benefactor, Firmin V. Desloge, it was established to serve the poor and others in nee ...

, now

St. Louis University Hospital Saint Louis University Hospital (SLU Hospital) is a 356-bed non-profit, research and academic medical center located in St. Louis, Missouri, providing tertiary care for the east Missouri region. The medical center is a part of the SSM Health Syst ...

in St. Louis, Missouri and served as a physician in the Korean War. He worked at the National Cancer Institute from 1955 to 1965 and the

M. D. Anderson Cancer Center The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (colloquially MD Anderson Cancer Center) is a comprehensive cancer center in Houston, Texas. It is the largest cancer center in the U.S. and one of the original three comprehensive cancer centers ...

from 1965 to 1972; while at M.D. Anderson he was the founding director of the Department of Development Therapeutics, which evolved into the Clinical Research Center. He served as physician-in-chief at the Dana-Farber Institute from 1972 to 1991. He is best known for his work on the treatment of lymphomas and childhood and adult leukemia. His groundbreaking research into then-controversial combination chemotherapy, including the VAMP regimen, earned him many awards. He coauthored "Cancer Medicine" with Dr.

James F. Holland James Frederick Holland (May 16, 1925 – March 22, 2018) was an American physician and Distinguished Professor of Neoplastic Diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Early in his career, he had worked for the National ...

Involvement in Cancer Cooperative Group Research

Frei was one of the founders of the Acute Leukemia Group B which later evolved into the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB). He served as the group chair for 16 years, from 1956 to 1963, and again from 1981 to 1990.

Journal of Clinical Oncology

He coined the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 1981, journal published first issue in 1983 in association with American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Recognition

In 1972 he received the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award from the

Lasker Foundation The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1945 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, which was ...

"for his outstanding contribution in application of the concept of combination chemotherapy for lymphoma and acute adult leukemia." Other awards included the Jeffrey A. Gottlieb Memorial Award (1978); NIH Distinguished Alumni Award (1990); Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1999); Pollin Prize for Pediatric Research (2003); and AARC Lifetime Achievement Award (2004). * 2013 Fellow of the AACR Academy * 2004

AACR Lifetime Achievement Award The American Association for Cancer Research gives several annual awards for significant contributions to the field of cancer research. AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research This award recognizes prodigious scientists that have ...

* 1999 Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences * 1997 Elected Member,

Institute of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, En ...

* 1990 First NIH Distinguished Alumni Award * 1989 Armand Hammer Award * 1985 Hamao Umezawa Award, International Society of Chemotherapy, Infection and Cancer * 1983

Charles F. Kettering Prize The Charles F. Kettering Prize was a US$250,000 award given by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation for the most outstanding recent contribution to the diagnosis or treatment of cancer. __TOC__ History The award was named in honor of Charl ...

, General Motors Cancer Research Foundation * 1981 Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...

* 1980 Elected fellow of the

American College of Physicians The American College of Physicians (ACP) is a national organization of internists, who specialize in the diagnosis, treatment, and care of adults.Sokanu "What is an Internist?" Retrieved October 20, 2014 With 161,000 members, ACP is the largest ...

* 1972 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award * 1971 President, AACR * 1968 President,

American Society of Clinical Oncology The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is a professional organization representing physicians of all oncology sub-specialties who care for people with cancer. Founded in 1964 by Fred Ansfield, Harry Bisel, Herman Freckman, Arnoldus Gou ...

Death

Frei died of

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

at his home in

Oak Park, Illinois Oak Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago. It is the 29th-most populous municipality in Illinois with a population of 54,583 as of the 2020 U.S. Census estimate. Oak Park was first settled in 1835 and later incorporated i ...

on April 30, 2013. He was 89.

References

External links

Interview with Emil Frei
for the ''Making Cancer History Voices Collection'' at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frei, Emil 1924 births 2013 deaths American oncologists Cancer researchers Colgate University alumni Harvard Medical School faculty People from St. Louis Yale School of Medicine alumni Recipients of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award Members of the National Academy of Medicine