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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.