The Institute for Cancer Research (ICR) was and is a hotbed for basic and translational discovery. Initially a standalone institute, the ICR is currently the main science engine for the Fox Chase Cancer Center.
Despite its modest size and budget, ICR, which thrives on small-scale, old-school science in the best sense of those terms, has historically punched well above its weight. This is due largely to its ability to attract top talent. Starting in the late 1960s, Tim Talbot, the longtime scientific director, had the wit and the means to assemble a veritable “Murderers’ Row” of cutting-edge cancer researchers that set the tone for the ICR for decades to come.
What he offered these scientists wasn’t so much better money, more modern equipment, or roomier space, though he did offer some of that. No, the real draw was the chance for these advanced thinkers to realize their dreams, unfettered by other institutional responsibilities, and to work alongside an absolutely stellar group of creative people who, over time, have had an outsized impact on our understanding of the genetic and cellular bases of tumorigenesis.
At one point, six of his 10 recruits ended up in the National Academy of Sciences. That daunting record is unlikely to be equaled and has served as a useful check on the egos of his successors, myself included.
Early giants included the structural biologist Lindo Patterson, as well as the developmental biologists Robert Briggs and Thomas King. Patterson developed analytic tools for protein structure determination that are still used today. He (and later his postdoctoral fellow, Jenny Glusker) held an NIH grant entitled “The Structure of Proteins” that was continuously funded for more than 50 years, likely a record.
Briggs and King used nuclear transfer to create the world’s first cloned animals many decades before Dolly the sheep, establishing key principles in developmental biology.
These notables were followed by a second wave of hires, brought on mostly between 1960 and 1970: Bea Mintz, Barry Blumberg, Ernie Rose, David Hungerford, Al Knudson, Bob Perry, Paul Engstrom, and Jenny Glusker.
Among them, these scientists would eventually win two Nobel Prizes, the Lasker Award, the Kyoto Prize, two John Scott Awards, the GM Cancer Research Prize, the Szent-Györgyi Prize, the William Proctor Prize, and countless other prestigious awards. More importantly, they fundamentally changed the way we think about cancer.
