1970 - Due to the findings of ACS CPS I, the Surgeon General concurs that cigarette smoking is irrefutably linked to cancer.

1970 - The first cancer-causing gene, or oncogene, is identified in a chicken tumor virus by Peter Vogt, MD, and Hidesaburo Hanafusa, PhD.

1970s - ACS allots $3 million for the development and testing of the first biological therapy, alpha interferon, now used in the treatment of some forms of leukemia and childhood Wilms' tumor of the kidney.

1970s - Epidemiological evidence analyzed by Brian McMahon, MD, shows that breast cancer is related to length of a woman's lifetime exposure to reproductive hormones.

1970s - ACS invests over $1 million to demonstrate that mammography is the best tool for early detection of breast cancer.

1970s - ACS Research Professors Joseph Bertino, MD, and Robert Schimke, MD, work out mechanisms of drug resistance.

1971 - ACS plays leading role in the passage of the National Cancer Act, considered the most dramatic piece of health legislation ever enacted.

1971 - Irving Selikoff, MD, demonstrates that occupational exposure to asbestos increases risk of rare lung cancer, mesothelioma. 1972-First grant in anti-angiogenesis goes to Judah Folkman, MD.

1972 - E. Donnall Thomas, MD, pioneers the technique of bone marrow transplantation to treat cancer. He receives the Nobel Prize in 1990.

1973 - Stanley N. Cohen, MD, creates recombinant DNA.

1973 - Paul Berg, PhD, clones the first gene, winning the Nobel Prize in 1980.

1974 - V. Craig Jordan, PhD, shows that tamoxifen can prevent breast cancer in rats by binding to the estrogen receptor. 1975-Field of psycho-oncology is established by Jimmie Holland, MD.

1976 - J. Michael Bishop, MD, and Harold Varmus, MD, discover proto-oncogenes in normal DNA, suggesting that a normal gene already present in the cell has the potential of becoming an oncogene. They receive the Nobel Prize in 1989.

1977 - The Great American Smokeout begins.

1978 - ACS Research Professor Tony Hunter, PhD, with grantee Bart Sefton, PhD, provide the first clue to the biological function of an oncogene, in this case an enzyme involved in cellular communication.

1978 - Clara Bloomfield, MD, demonstrates chromosome rearrangement in leukemia and opens up the field of cytogenetics.

1978 - Tamoxifen is approved by the FDA for treating estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. Bernard Fisher, MD, Richard Love, MD, and V. Craig Jordan, PhD, develop and carry out the first trial of tamoxifen to -prevent recurrence in breast cancer survivors.

1978 - Walter Gilbert, MD, (and Frederick Sanger, PhD) develop technique to sequence DNA. They receive the Nobel Prize for this in 1980.

1979 - ACS Research Professor Robert Weinberg, PhD, demonstrates the first biologically active human oncogene from a human bladder cancer; over 50 human oncogenes are known today.

1979 - Arnold Levine, MD, discovers the p53 protein, later shown to be a tumor-suppressor gene mutated in over half of all cancers.

1979 - A team led by Harold Varmus, MD, shows that a family of enzymes known as tyrosine kinases are involved in the regulation of cell growth.