Fox Chase Cancer Center is a

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 Center research facility and hospital located in the Fox Chase section of

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The main facilities of the center are located on property adjoining Burholme Park. The center is part of the Temple University Health System (TUHS) and specializes in the treatment and prevention of cancer.

History

The center was formed in 1974 by the merger of the American Oncologic Hospital, which was founded in 1904 as the first cancer hospital in the United States, and the Institute for Cancer Research, founded in 1927. In 1967 a large wing of the hospital was constructed based on a design by Vincent G. Kling using steep slopes of poured concrete and

roof tiles Roof tiles are overlapping tiles designed mainly to keep out precipitation such as rain or snow, and are traditionally made from locally available materials such as clay or slate. Later tiles have been made from materials such as concrete, glass ...

by Ludowici. In 1995, Fox Chase also became a founding member of the

National Comprehensive Cancer Network The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) is an alliance of 33 cancer centers in the United States, most of which are designated by the National Cancer Institute (one of the U.S. National Institutes of Health) as comprehensive cancer cent ...

, an alliance of 21 of the nation's leading academic cancer centers. The center was an independent, non-profit institution until it became part of TUHS on July 1, 2012. On December 15, 2011, Fox Chase Cancer Center and Temple University Health system signed an affiliation agreement. Under the agreement, Fox Chase has connected and extended its current operations into the adjoining 176-bed and 33-acre Jeanes Hospital, which is already a part of the Temple University Health System. Fox Chase is considered the "Cancer Hub" of the Temple University Health System. The center has almost 2,400 employees and an operating budget of $300 million. More than 14,000 new patients seek care at Fox Chase each year. Annual hospital admissions average about 3,500 and outpatient visits to physicians exceed 125,000 a year.

Research advances and awards

* 2023

American Nurses Association The American Nurses Association (ANA) is a 501(c)(6) professional organization to advance and protect the profession of nursing. It started in 1896 as the Nurses Associated Alumnae and was renamed the American Nurses Association in 1911. It is b ...

Magnet Award for Nursing Excellence. Fox Chase Cancer Center is one of 15 hospitals to receive the award six or more times. * 2020 the Press Ganey's Guardian of Excellence Award for excellence in clinical care in outpatient services. * 2018 Anna Marie Skalka is awarded the

William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement The William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement is an award given by Sigma Xi, a scientific-research honor society. The Procter Prize is presented annually to a scientist who has made an outstanding contribution to scientific research and has d ...

, given to scientists who have made an outstanding contribution to scientific research and demonstrated an ability to communicate this research to scientists in other disciplines * 2011 The 6th Albert Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research was awarded to

Beatrice Mintz Beatrice Mintz (January 24, 1921 – January 3, 2022) was an American embryologist who contributed to the understanding of genetic modification, cellular differentiation, and cancer, particularly melanoma.Martha J. Bailey, ''American women in sci ...

by the

National Foundation for Cancer Research National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) is an American nonprofit organization founded in 1973. It provides funds to cancer scientists and researchers, with the ultimate goal of a cure for cancer. Awards The Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progr ...

for her discoveries of the relationship between development and cancer, based on construction and analysis of chimeric and transgenic mouse models. * 2004 The

Kyoto Prize The is Japan's highest private award for lifetime achievement in the arts and sciences. It is given not only to those that are top representatives of their own respective fields, but to "those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, ...

in Basic Science is awarded to Alfred G. Knudson for lifetime achievement and contributions to the betterment of mankind. * 2004 The

Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

is awarded to

Irwin Rose Irwin Allan Rose (July 16, 1926 – June 2, 2015) was an American biologist. Along with Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. Educat ...

and his colleagues

Aaron Ciechanover Aaron Ciechanover ( ; ; born October 1, 1947) is an Israeli biologist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for characterizing the method that cells use to degrade and recycle proteins using ubiquitin. Biography Early life Ciechanover was born ...

and

Avram Hershko Avram Hershko (, ; born December 31, 1937) is an Hungarian-born Israeli biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004. Biography He was born Herskó Ferenc in Karcag, Hungary, into a Jewish family, the son of Shoshana/Margit ' ...

for their discovery of

ubiquitin Ubiquitin is a small (8.6 kDa) regulatory protein found in most tissues of eukaryotic organisms, i.e., it is found ''ubiquitously''. It was discovered in 1975 by Gideon Goldstein and further characterized throughout the late 1970s and 19 ...

-mediated protein degradation. * 2000 Fox Chase became the first US cancer center and the first hospital in Pennsylvania to earn the

Magnet Award for Nursing Excellence . * 1993

produces the first mouse model of human malignant melanoma, in which the disease resembles the human malignancy. * 1991 Philip Tsichlis, Alfonso Bellacosa, and Joseph Testa clone the

AKT1 RAC(Rho family)-alpha serine/threonine-protein kinase is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''AKT1'' gene. This enzyme belongs to the AKT subfamily of serine/threonine kinases that contain SH2 (Src homology 2-like) protein domains. It ...

and

AKT2 AKT2, also known as RAC-beta serine/threonine-protein kinase, is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''AKT2'' gene. It influences metabolite storage as part of the insulin signal transduction pathway. Function This gene is a putative ...

genes - the first viral oncogenes described that inhibit programmed cell death. * 1991 Timothy Yen discovers that a molecular motor controls the way human cells sort their chromosomes when cells divide during

mitosis Mitosis () is a part of the cell cycle in eukaryote, eukaryotic cells in which replicated chromosomes are separated into two new Cell nucleus, nuclei. Cell division by mitosis is an equational division which gives rise to genetically identic ...

. * 1982 William Mason and Jesse Summers demonstrate that the hepatitis B virus utilizes reverse transcription for genome replication, previously thought to be unique to retroviruses. * 1981

's laboratory is one of the first to introduce a cloned gene into fertilized mouse eggs and prove that it is retained in animals developing from those eggs, and is transmitted to their progeny. * 1980 Discovery of critical aspects of

-dependent protein degradation by

and

. * 1980 Alfred G. Knudson develops the "two-hit" hypothesis, predicting the existence and behavior of tumor suppressor genes. * 1980 Discovery of the SCID mouse, a mouse strain with no natural immunity, by Melvin Bosma. The SCID mouse is an essential research tool in devising new treatments. * 1979

shows that a fatal genetic anemia of mice can be prevented in utero by injecting normal blood-forming stem cells into the fetus through a placental blood vessel. * 1976 The

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...

is awarded to

Baruch Blumberg Baruch Samuel Blumberg (July 28, 1925 April 5, 2011), known as Barry Blumberg, was an American physician, geneticist, and co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Daniel Carleton Gajdusek), for his work on the hepa ...

for his discovery of the

Hepatitis B virus Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a partially double-stranded DNA virus, a species of the genus '' Orthohepadnavirus'' and a member of the '' Hepadnaviridae'' family of viruses. This virus causes the disease hepatitis B. Classification Hepatitis B ...

and development of the HBV vaccine, the first "anti-cancer vaccine", which has reduced the incidence of liver cancer. * 1975 The first

transgenic A transgene is a gene that has been transferred naturally, or by any of a number of genetic engineering techniques, from one organism to another. The introduction of a transgene, in a process known as transgenesis, has the potential to change the ...

mammals containing foreign DNA are produced by

and

Rudolf Jaenisch Rudolf Jaenisch (born on April 22, 1942) is a professor of biology at MIT and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered. Jaenisc ...

. * 1974 Discovery by Robert Perry that the messenger RNAs of mammalian cells and their precursors contain a novel structure at their leading ends. * 1972 Helen M. Berman and Jenny Glusker report the crystal structure of a nucleic acid-drug complex as a model for anti-tumor agent and mutagen action. * 1968 Development of the first

Hepatitis B vaccine Hepatitis B vaccine is a vaccine that prevents hepatitis B. The first dose is recommended within 24 hours of birth with either two or three more doses given after that. This includes those with poor immune function such as from HIV/AIDS and ...

and Irving Millman. * 1967 Discovery of the

and development of the blood test for Hepatitis B by

. * 1962 The first demonstration, by Robert Perry, that ribosomal RNA is synthesized in the nucleolus as a large precursor molecule that is subsequently processed into mature components. * 1962

's development of the first mammal comprising two genetically different cell populations in all tissues, as a tool for analyses of embryonic development and disease in mouse models. * 1960 Discovery of the

Philadelphia chromosome The Philadelphia chromosome or Philadelphia translocation (Ph) is an abnormal version of chromosome 22 where a part of the ''ABL (gene), Abelson murine leukemia'' 1 (''ABL1'') gene on chromosome 9 breaks off and attaches to the ''BCR (gene), break ...

, the first genetic abnormality associated with a human cancer, by David Hungerford of the Fox Chase Cancer Center and Peter Nowell of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. * 1952 First nuclear transplantation (or '

cloning Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical genomes, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction; this reproduction of an organism by itself without ...

') experiment is performed by Robert Briggs and Thomas King using eggs of the frog '' Rana pipiens''. * 1946 Mary Bennett identifies an essential nutrient later revealed to be

Vitamin B12 Vitamin B12, also known as cobalamin, is a water-soluble vitamin involved in metabolism. One of eight B vitamins, it serves as a vital cofactor (biochemistry), cofactor in DNA synthesis and both fatty acid metabolism, fatty acid and amino a ...

Notable current and former researchers

* Manfred Bayer, electron microscopist who obtained the earliest images of hepatitis B virus * Helen M. Berman, former director of the

Protein Data Bank The Protein Data Bank (PDB) is a database for the three-dimensional structural data of large biological molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids, which is overseen by the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB). This structural data is obtained a ...

, (d. 5 April 2011) awarded the

in 1976 for discovery of Hepatitis B and the Hepatitis B vaccine * Robert Briggs, pioneer in cloning by embryonic nuclear transfer * Marie A. DiBerardino, pioneer in amphibian cloning * Wafik El-Deiry, discoverer of WAF1 * Jenny Pickworth Glusker, noted crystallographer * David Hungerford, co-discoverer of the

* V. Craig Jordan, "Father of

Tamoxifen Tamoxifen, sold under the brand name Nolvadex among others, is a selective estrogen receptor modulator used to prevent breast cancer in women and men. It is also being studied for other types of cancer. It has been used for Albright syndrome ...

" * Alfred G. Knudson, architect of the "two-hit hypothesis" (

Knudson hypothesis The two-hit hypothesis, also known as the Knudson hypothesis, is the hypothesis that most tumor suppressor genes require both alleles to be inactivated, either through mutations or through epigenetic silencing, to cause a phenotypic change. It ...

) about the role of accumulated genetic errors in cancer development, awarded the

in 2004 and the Albert

Lasker Award In 1945 Albert Lasker and Mary Woodard Lasker created the Lasker Awards. Every year since then the award has been given to the living person considered to have made the greatest contribution to medical science or who has demonstrated public ser ...

in 1998 * H. Paul Meloche (1929 – 1999), research biochemist who specialized in the field of enzyme stereochemistry * Irving Millman (d. 17 April 2012), who helped

develop the first hepatitis B vaccine *

, pioneering cancer researcher, noted for many embryonic and genetic advances, and member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

and of the

Pontifical Academy of Sciences The Pontifical Academy of Sciences (, ) is a Academy of sciences, scientific academy of the Vatican City, established in 1936 by Pope Pius XI. Its aim is to promote the progress of the mathematical, physical, and natural sciences and the study ...

* Arthur Lindo Patterson, who developed the

Patterson function The Patterson function is used to solve the phase problem in X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science of determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam ...

, a key step in determining the structures of molecules using X-ray crystallography *

, awarded

in 2004 for the discovery of

-mediated

protein degradation Proteolysis is the breakdown of proteins into smaller polypeptides or amino acids. Protein degradation is a major regulatory mechanism of gene expression and contributes substantially to shaping mammalian proteomes. Uncatalysed, the hydrolysis o ...

* Harry Rozmiarek, noted veterinarian, academic, and laboratory animal care specialist. * Alton Sutnick, noted for the early clinical work that led to the identification of the

* Shirley M. Tilghman, president of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

from 2001 to 2013 * Tim J. Yen, former professor

References

External links

* {{authority control Hospitals in Philadelphia Medical research institutes in Pennsylvania Cancer hospitals Cancer organizations based in the United States Fox Chase, Philadelphia NCI-designated cancer centers 1904 establishments in Pennsylvania Temple University

History

Research advances and awards

Notable current and former researchers

See also

References

External links