Researchers supported by the American Cancer Society have contributed to major advances in cancer research. Among the most significant accomplishments are:

1946 - ACS Research Program begins with $1 million raised by Mary Lasker.

1946 - Wendell Stanley, PhD, becomes the first ACS--supported researcher to win a Nobel Prize (for crystallizing a virus).

1947 - Sidney Farber, MD, achieves remission in childhood leukemia with antifolate drug, aminopterin, the first successful chemotherapy for cancer.

1950s - ACS funded George Papanicolaou, MD, PhD, develops simple mass screening techniques for the detection of cervical cancer (Pap test).

1953 - James Watson, PhD, (with Francis Crick, PhD) establishes the double helical structure of DNA for which they are awarded the Nobel Prize in 1966.

1954 - ACS Hammond-Horn study confirms the link between smoking and lung cancer.

1955 - Charles Huggins, PhD, demonstrates that both prostate and breast cancer are related to sex hormones, for which he receives the Nobel Prize in 1966.

1955 - Emil J. Freireich, MD, and colleagues design first scientific clinical trial for combination cancer chemotherapy; by 1962, achieve a 15% cure rate in childhood leukemia.

1958 - 5-fluorouracil, a chemotherapeutic drug used to treat many cancers, is synthesized by Charles Heidelberger, PhD.

1959 - Stanley Cohen, PhD, discovers growth factors; wins Nobel Prize in 1986.

1959 - ACS Cancer Prevention Study I (CPS I) begins, which shows cigarette smoking responsible for early death from lung cancer.