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An NCI oral history with Paul Marks

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In 1999, NCI recorded an oral history with Paul Marks, president and chief executive officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center from 1980-1999. Marks died April 28, 2021, at the age of 93. An obituary appears here in The Cancer Letter. 

In the NCI interview, Marks describes his initial skepticism of the National Cancer Act. 

“I, frankly, was very concerned that it would distort the funding for biomedical research. I felt that a most important area for funding was basic research,” he said. “By definition, this couldn’t be defined as cancer research or heart research or diabetes, but fundamental investigations into human biology, or mammalian biology, or even lower forms [of life] was extremely important and had to go forward if we were really to understand and make progress in the cancer problem.” 

Marks sent a letter outlining his concerns to Benno Schmidt, one of the architects of the National Cancer Program, who set up a meeting with Marks and the head of NCI at the time. 

Marks went on to join the President’s Cancer Panel from 1976 through 1979. In this interview, he describes this journey among other career highlights. 

Editor’s Note: This article, which was first posted on the website of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2017, discusses the influence of former MSK President Paul Marks in shaping modern cancer research. 

The cells weren’t supposed to turn pink, Charlotte Friend thought to herself as she stared into a glass tube on her lab bench at Mount Sinai hospital in 1971.

Dr. Friend, a microbiologist, had been experimenting with a virus that caused cancer in mice. The virus infected mouse cells then hijacked the cells’ genetic machinery, leading to leukemia.

In this particular experiment, she first soaked the cells in a chemical called DMSO. She hoped to make the cells more porous, enabling more virus particles to enter. A few days later, the normally clear solution of leukemia cells had turned bright pink.

Dr. Friend phoned the one person she thought might have some insight.

“What human proteins are red?” she asked Paul Marks, a professor of clinical pathology at Columbia University whom she knew to be an expert in the genetics of blood disorders.

“There’s only one,” Dr. Marks replied.

Paul Marks was president and CEO of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center from 1980-1999. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act, MSK developed an interactive timeline that outlines its most significant contributions to oncology during the past half century. 

Quote of the week

Most of the answers to cancer lie down on the level of the genes, in our understanding of how cells differentiate and divide.

Paul Marks

Recent article

Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act, AACI is pleased to share The History of the Association of American Cancer Institutes. Written by Donald L. Trump, MD, and Eric T. Rosenthal, authors of Centers of the Cancer Universe: A Half-Century of Progress Against Cancer (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), the AACI history is based on meeting minutes, other source documents and interviews with AACI past presidents.

This column features the latest posts to the Cancer History Project by our growing list of contributors. 

The Cancer History Project is a free, web-based, collaborative resource intended to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act and designed to continue in perpetuity. The objective is to assemble a robust collection of historical documents and make them freely available. 

Access to the Cancer History Project is open to the public at CancerHistoryProject.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at @CancerHistProj.

Is your institution a contributor to the Cancer History Project? Eligible institutions include cancer centers, advocacy groups, professional societies, pharmaceutical companies, and key organizations in oncology. 

To apply to become a contributor, please contact admin@cancerhistoryproject.com.

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