Download Moving Toward Victory

Moving Toward Victory
For nearly a century, the American
Cancer Society has been moving
toward victory over cancer. Since
1913, the Society has helped lead
the way in cancer research,
education, advocacy, and service.
As a result, we have seen
remarkable strides in cancer
science, prevention, and treatment.
Today, more than ever, our goals
of saving lives and improving the
quality of lives are within reach.
We dedicate this walk through
history to our millions of
committed volunteers nationwide,
to our passionate and dedicated
staff, and to everyone whose life
has been touched by cancer.
The 10s and 20s
In 1913, the American Cancer Society
raised public awareness by publishing the
first widely read article about cancer.
Today, more than five million people
each year learn the facts about the disease
through 1-800-ACS-2345 and
www.cancer.org.
1918 – Most American Cancer Society
activities are linked with the war effort.
Pamphlets include “Help Win the War by
Preventing Unnecessary Sickness.”
1921 – The Society holds a National
Cancer Week for the first time in the US.
1925 – The Society helps establish 15
cancer clinics throughout the country.
1929 – The Society’s “Danger Signals of
Cancer” are published in 22 languages.
The 30s and 40s
In 1946, the American Cancer Society launched its
research program with $1 million raised by
volunteer Mary Lasker. Since then, the Society has
devoted more than $2.5 billion to lifesaving cancer
research and has become the world’s largest
private, nonprofit source of cancer research funds.
The Society has supported 39 Nobel laureates
earlier in their careers.
1930 – In conjunction with the American Cancer
Society, the American College of Surgeons sets
standards for cancer clinics.
1935 – The Women’s Field Army of the American
Cancer Society is founded upon the belief that
every woman should know about cancer for her
own protection.
1943 – Mary Lasker and the American Cancer
Society convince radio networks to allow mention
of the disease and to call for research support.
1946 – Wendell Stanley, PhD, becomes the first
Society-funded researcher to win the Nobel Prize
(for crystallizing a virus).
1947 – Society-funded Sidney Farber, MD, sends
childhood leukemia into remission with the first
successful chemotherapy. The treatment now saves
thousands of lives each year.
The 50s
During the 1950s, the American Cancer Society
began its grassroots tradition of mobilizing
communities for positive change. In 2002, the
Society helped nearly 30,000 people contact
policymakers to encourage them to make fighting
cancer a national priority.
1950s – American Cancer Society-funded George
Papanicolau, MD, PhD, develops a screening
technique for the early detection of cervical cancer
(the Pap test), resulting in a 70 percent decrease in
deaths from the disease.
1953 – Society-funded James Watson, PhD (with
Francis Crick, MD) establishes the double helical
structure of DNA, for which he wins the 1962
Nobel Prize.
1954 – The American Cancer Society’s HammondHorn study first links smoking and cancer.
1955 – Society-funded Charles Huggins, PhD,
shows that prostate and breast cancers are related to
sex hormones, for which he later wins the Nobel
Prize. Four other researchers funded by the Society
win Nobel Prizes in the decade.
1959 – The American Cancer Society Cancer
Prevention Study I connects cigarette smoking to
early death from lung cancer.
The 60s and 70s
When Nobel laureate E. Donnall Thomas proposed
the idea that bone marrow transplants might help
patients recover from chemotherapy, the American
Cancer Society was the only organization that
would support him. Today, thousands of people
survive cancer each year as a result of this
lifesaving treatment.
1960s – The American Cancer Society plays a
leading role in challenging and ultimately
eliminating tobacco advertising.
1964 – US Surgeon General Luther Terry concurs
with the American Cancer Society’s research
demonstrating the link between smoking and
cancer and issues warnings to the American public.
1969 – The Society launches the Reach to
Recovery® program, through which trained breast
cancer survivors offer hope and help to women
facing the disease.
1971 – The Society plays a leading role in the
passage of the National Cancer Act, widely
considered the most influential health care
legislation ever enacted.
1973 – Society-funded Paul Berg, PhD, clones the
first gene, for which he wins the Nobel Prize in
1980. Twelve other Society-funded researchers are
honored with the prize in the 1960s and the 1970s.
1976 – J. Michael Bishop, MD, and Harold
Varmus, MD, funded by the American Cancer
Society, discover that normal genes present in cells
have the potential to become oncogenes. They win
the Nobel Prize in 1989.
1977 –The Society’s first annual Great American
Smokeout® publicizes the dangers of smoking with
the media and the general public.
1978 – Tamoxifen is approved by the FDA for
treating breast cancer. Society-funded Bernard
Fisher, MD, Richard Love, MD, and V. Craig
Jordan, PhD, carry out the first trial of the drug to
prevent recurrence in breast cancer survivors.
1978 – Society-funded Walter Gilbert, MD, (with
Frederick Sanger, PhD) develops a technique to
sequence DNA, for which he later wins a Nobel
Prize.
1979 – The Society begins I Can Cope®, a group
program conducted by trained health care
professionals for cancer patients and their families
and friends.
The 80s
In 1980, the Society set the first early detection
guidelines for breast cancer, and a year later a former
Society grantee developed the prostate specific antigen
test. The Society’s aggressive work in establishing and
promoting early detection guidelines has dramatically
decreased mortality rates for several cancers.
1980s – Nine American Cancer Society-supported
researchers receive the Nobel Prize, including Susumu
Tonegawa, for discovering how antibodies are made by
the immune system’s cells.
1982 – The Society joins forces with the American
Heart Association and the American Lung Association
to advocate for federal tobacco control policy.
1982 – The Society launches Cancer Prevention Study
II of 1.2 million Americans to determine risk factors for
cancer mortality.
1985 – The first American Cancer Society Relay
For Life® is held. By 2003, the event raises more
than one billion dollars for the Society’s cancer
research, education, advocacy, and patient
services programs, and more than three million
people participate in nearly 4,000 local Relays
each year.
1989 – The Society teams with the Cosmetic, Toiletry,
and Fragrance Association Foundation to produce Look
Good … Feel Better®, a program which helps women
deal with the appearance-related side effects of cancer
treatment.
The 90s
Eighty years of dedicated cancer research, education,
advocacy, and service show impressive results. The
American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, and the National Cancer
Institute announce the first documented overall
downturn in cancer mortality, and the number of
people diagnosed with the disease decreases for the
first time.
1990s – The American Cancer Society advocates for
cancer prevention and quality of life for cancer
survivors by working to pass the Breast and Cervical
Cancer Mortality Prevention Act and other
innovative, lifesaving legislation.
1990s – Five Society-funded researchers are awarded
the Nobel Prize, including Günter Blobel, MD, PhD,
who discovered how proteins determine their proper
location within a cell.
1990 – Mary-Claire King, PhD, discovers a breast
cancer gene, demonstrating that breast cancer can be
inherited.
1993 – The American Cancer Society’s first Making
Strides Against Breast Cancer® event is held in
Boston. Between 1993 and 2002, the event generates
more than $100 million for breast cancer research
and services nationwide.
1994 – The Society’s Man to Man® program begins,
offering support and information to men with prostate
cancer.
1994 – Through the American Cancer Society
Foundation, Mrs. Walt Disney supports establishment
of the Society’s Behavioral Research Center, which
conducts psychosocial and behavioral research and
facilitates the transfer of knowledge and theory into
improved cancer control policies.
1995 – The Leo and Gloria Rosen family’s support of
the American Cancer Society Foundation enables the
cancer information Web site, www.cancer.org, to be
launched. In 2002, more than 4.8 million unique
visitors accessed the site.
1995 – With support from the Foundation and the
vision of volunteer Lana Rosenfeld, "tlc" Tender
Loving Care® magalog is published. It provides
cancer patients and survivors with a wide variety of
affordable products, such as wigs, hats, and
prostheses.
1997 – The Society launches 1-800-ACS-2345. The
call center provides cancer information from trained
specialists 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
1998 – Former Society grantee Dennis Slamon, MD,
shows that a genetically engineered antibody,
Herceptin, improves survival rates for women with
breast cancer.
2000 and Beyond
As the American Cancer Society approaches its
100th anniversary, the organization’s goals for the
future remain necessarily ambitious. By 2015, the
Society aims to prevent almost five million
additional cancer deaths and six million new cancer
diagnoses, as well as to measurably improve the
quality of life for people with cancer.
2000 – The human genome is sequenced, thanks in
part to several Society grantees. This opens the
door to our understanding of cancer-causing genes.
2000 – The Society launches Cancer Survivors
Network SM, a virtual community created by and
for survivors and caregivers. The first of its kind,
this online service helps people cope with the
challenges of living with cancer.
2001 – The FDA approves Novartis’ Gleevec to
treat chronic myelogenous leukemia based on the
work of former Society grantee Brian Druker, MD.
Gleevec represents a new class of gentler cancer
therapy that targets only abnormal cells.
2002 – Relay For Life® Celebration on the Hill
unites volunteers representing every state and
Congressional district in the country – the first time
a grassroots event does so. More than 3,000
volunteer community ambassadors and thousands
more volunteers and survivors join forces in
Washington, DC to advocate for better laws to help
all Americans fight cancer.
2002 – The Society launches a new sister 501(c)4
organization – the American Cancer Society
Cancer Action NetworkSM – to provide new
opportunities for voter education and direct
advocacy for cancer legislation.
2003 – American Cancer Society researchers, led
by Eugenia Calle, PhD, conclude that overweight
and obesity contribute to most types of cancer and
could account for 14 percent of cancers in men and
20 percent of cancers in women.
2004 – The Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded
to three former American Cancer Society grantees - Irwin A. Rose, PhD, Avram Hershko, MD, PhD,
and Aaron Ciechanover, MD, for their
groundbreaking work in discovering how cells
mark and then destroy unwanted proteins. Their
research has led to the development of the drug
Velcade, approved by the Food and Drug
Administration for the treatment of certain blood
cancers, specifically recurrent multiple myeloma.
2006 - Former grantee, Craig C. Mello, PhD, age
45, shares the 2006 Nobel Prize in Medicine with
Andrew Z. Fire, PhD, 47, of Stanford University,
for their discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) - a
method of gene silencing using double-stranded
RNA. The RNAi mechanism -- a natural response
of an organism to double-stranded RNA, of which
many viruses are comprised -- destroys the gene
products that a virus needs to replicate itself,
essentially halting the progression of the invading
viral infection. The discoveries may lead to
methods to stop gene expression in diseases such as
cancer, slowing tumor growth.
2007 - Former grantees Mario R. Capecchi, PhD,
and Oliver Smithies, PhD, along with Briton Sir
Martin J. Evans, are co-winners of the 2007 Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their
groundbreaking discoveries that led to a technology
known as gene targeting. Their work enabled
scientists to develop targeted "gene knockout"
mouse models that allows the study of specific
genes involved in cancer, as well as in other
diseases. Dr. Capecchi, of the University of Utah,
received a four-year Faculty Research Award from
the American Cancer Society beginning in July 1,
1974. Dr. Smithies, of the University of North
Carolina, received funds for an American Cancer
Society Project Grant from July 1, 1974 December 31, 1976.