The Society’s award in clinical research went to Ronald Levy, MD, of Stanford, California, the basic research award was presented to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, PhD, of San Francisco, California, and the medal for contributions to cancer control was presented to Harold P. Freeman, MD, New York, NY.

Dr. Levy received his clinical research award for "his conviction that the body’s natural defenses can be used to fight the diseases that attack it; for his search for novel approaches and new technologies to overcome cancer, especially immunologic treatments for lymphoma; for his research to create vaccines against cancer; and for his commitment to mentoring young investigators."

Dr. Levy is a professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Oncology in the Department of Medicine at Stanford University. He is also an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professor. In 1999 he received the American Society of Clinical Oncology Karnofsky Award and the General Motors Charles Kettering Prize for the most outstanding recent contribution to the diagnosis or treatment of cancer.

Dr. Levy’s studies have focused on finding ways to use the natural defenses of the cancer patient’s body to defeat the disease. His research concentrates on the study of malignant lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system, using monoclonal antibodies to improve the survival of patients. This treatment combines relatively easily with other therapies, such as chemotherapeutic agents, and has shown a remarkable lack of toxic side effects. He is currently conducting clinical trials of customized lymphoma vaccines. Such vaccines depend on the unique characteristics of a patient’s own tumor, and are most likely used for patients whose disease is in remission.

Dr. Levy graduated from Harvard University and received his medical degree from Stanford. After a fellowship at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, he returned to Stanford in 1975 to join the School of Medicine’s Division of Oncology and became the head of the division in 1993. Dr. Levy has published more than 230 articles in the fields of oncology and immunology.

He is married to Shoshana Levy, PhD, a fellow Stanford professor and researcher with whom he collaborates. They have three children.

Dr. Blackburn was honored for "her groundbreaking research on and discovery of the enzyme telomerase which explains the specific activity of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes; for her analytic insights into how manipulating telomerase might be used to combat cancer; and for her recognition of the potential relevance that telomerase might have to the process of human aging."

Cell biologists had long been puzzled about how chromosomes could replicate, because the properties of all the enzymes then known to be involved in chromosome replication predicated that the chromosomes would grow shorter with each round. Dr. Blackburn, working in the laboratory of Professor Joseph Gall, PhD, at Yale University, discovered that the chromosome ends, called telomeres, were composed of special DNA sequences rich in repeats of the building block guanosine. By the early 1980s, Dr. Blackburn was heading her own laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, where she and then-graduate student Carol Greider identified telomerase, the enzyme whose action is responsible for replenishing the needed telomeric DNA when telomeres wear down as cells multiply. In 1985, they published the first paper describing telomerase.

This groundbreaking research leads to the hope that telomerase might be manipulated for therapeutic purposes to prolong cell life and combat cancer. By allowing cancer cells to multiply, telomerase promotes cancer cell and tumor growth, but it also can protect chromosomal ends, thus preventing some human precancerous cells from becoming progressively unstable, leading to development of the disease. Its activity might also offer new insights into the biology of aging.

Dr. Blackburn was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia and received her bachelor of science and master of science degrees from the University of Melbourne. She earned her PhD from the University of Cambridge, England, where she met her future husband, a Californian. Following Cambridge and postdoctoral work at Yale, Dr. Blackburn joined the faculty UC, Berkeley, in 1978, and relocated to UC, San Francisco, in 1990, as a professor in both the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. She chaired the Department of Microbiology and Immunology from 1993 to 1999.

Dr. Blakburn has published more that 140 scientific papers. She is associate editor of the journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell, and is past president of the American Society for Cell Biology.

This year Dr. Blackburn received the G.H.A. Clowes Award, given by the American Association for Cancer Research to recognize a sustained record of outstanding accomplishment in basic research. She was elected to the National American Academy of Sciences in 1993.

Dr. Blackburn and her husband, John W. Sedat, PhD, who is also a professor at UCSF and an expert on the 3-dimentional structures of chromosomes and cell nuclei, live in San Francisco and have a 13-year old son.

Dr. Freeman’s citation reads: "for his crusade to heighten awareness among medical professionals and the public that poverty and cultural barriers, more than race, are reasons for the higher rates of cancer incidence and death among minorities; for leading the ACS to commit more resources to benefit diverse populations; and for his devotion to reducing the cancer burden among the medically underserved."

Harold Freeman credits his personal crusade for improved medical care on behalf of the less fortunate to his heritage, pointing to this great-grandfather who graduated from Harvard and was among the first African-American dentists, to his grandfather who was a physician in Washington, DC, and to his mother who instilled in him a sense of racial pride and a commitment to humanity.

When Dr. Freeman was president of the American Cancer Society from 1988 to 1989, he conducted a series of hearings across the United States, that documented that economic status, education, literacy, cultural influences, and access to care are reasons more pivotal than race as to why some populations suffer from higher cancer incidence and mortality. Today, the American Cancer Society views correcting this inequity as an important part of its mission and currently dedicates a portion of its research to studying the issues that affect these groups.

For 25 years, from 1974-1999, Dr. Freeman was director of surgery at Harlem Hospital. In 1979, using a grant from the American Cancer Society, he started a Saturday morning screening program for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers at the hospital. Since 1979, he has been medical director of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s Breast Examination Center of Harlem. He also founded the Harlem Hospital patient Navigator Program, which uses trained volunteers to help low-income breast cancer patients access diagnostic procedures and treatment.

Today Dr. Freeman is president and CEO of Harlem’s North General Hospital, as well as its director of surgery. Founded in 1979, it is the only minority-operated, not-for-profit, voluntary community teaching hospital in New York State. He is also professor of Clinical Surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1997 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is a member of the Howard University Board of Trustees.

This year President Clinton appointed Dr. Freeman to his fourth term as chairman of the President’s Cancer Panel. In addition, Dr. Freeman was recently appointed associate director of the National Cancer Institute and the director of its Center for Reducing Health Disparities. He currently chairs the New York State Commission on Smoking and Health.

Dr. Freeman was born in Washington, DC and graduated from Catholic University in 1954, and from Howard University Medical School in 1958. His many awards include the Mary Lasker Public Service Award and the National Medical Association’s Vernal Cave Medical Humanitarian Award for his outstanding service to the traditionally underserved.

Harold Freeman and his wife, Arti, have two sons, Harold P., Jr., and Neale, both of whom are physicians.

The American Cancer Society is the nationwide community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy and service.

For information about cancer, call toll-free anytime 1-800-ACS-2345 or visit the American Cancer Society website at www.cancer.org.



Joann Schellenbach

American Cancer Society
212-382-2169
jschelle@cancer.org