Black History Month: Highlights from 2021

On Monday, March 1, 2021, Adekunle “Kunle” Odunsi will become the director of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center—and the second Black director of an NCI-designated cancer center.

The Cancer Letter guest editor Robert Winn, director of VCU Massey Cancer Center, spoke with Odunsi. Winn served as guest editor through February, focusing on coverage of issues related to Black History Month.

Odunsi will also serve as Biological Sciences Division dean for oncology and professor of obstetrics and gynecology.

As she became president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Lori J. Pierce decided to focus on equity in cancer care as her year-long presidential theme.

“As African Americans, we are acutely aware that for almost every metric, we see a disparate outcome, with Black and brown people doing worse. Cancer is certainly no different,” Pierce, professor of radiation oncology, vice provost for academic and faculty affairs at the University of Michigan, and the first African American to be elected president of ASCO, said in an interview.

“Before the pandemic, before the most recent acts of racism shown on the internet, I picked equity as my presidential theme. And I knew it was a good theme for ASCO, as equity of care is foundational for so much that ASCO does.

“And I also discovered that although equity is fundamental to ASCO’s mission, equity had never formally been a presidential theme. So, I thought, Okay, this is the time. And then, a few months later, the world changed.”

It is a great privilege and honor to have the opportunity to represent the National Medical Association in this tribute to Dr. Jane Cooke Wright. I first met Dr. Wright during as ASCO meeting and maintained subsequent contact.

She is affectionately known in the cancer research community as the Mother of Chemotherapy. She is not only known as the Mother of Chemotherapy, but Dr. Wright is listed in the Women Pioneers of Medical Research and among the top Medical Researchers.

As a researcher, physician, administrator, teacher, mentor, educator, her many discoveries have brought continued health into the lives of millions of people. Across the board, doctors and research scientists dedicated themselves to find cures and treatment for some of the most severe and significant diseases that have challenged mankind for many ages.

Originally published February 4, 2018

By Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO

Each year on World Cancer Day, an initiative led by the Union for International Cancer Control, leading organizations from around the world and ASCO join together in a global campaign to raise awareness of cancer.

In a very simple sense, the problem of cancer is fundamental to the existence of humans.

This assertion is based on biology—the structure and function of genes and their interactions with our environment over the course of a lifetime. It is fair to say that for all eternity we will have to confront the possibility of malignancy and the need for effective treatment.

On the other hand, the advances in treatment and prevention we have made over the past century (a virtual blink of the eye in the history of humankind) suggest that the decades and centuries ahead will see unimaginable and dramatic changes in the meaning and implication of malignancies for individuals and for society. As science advances, no longer must a diagnosis of cancer be a life-changing event. Of course, there are already cancers that are rightly seen that way, but for too many this remains a dream.

Hence, on World Cancer Day 2018, the third year under the “We Can, I Can” theme, we are reminded that we can’t simply wait for the better future when there is so much to do right now.