 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a Comprehensive Cancer Center designated by the National Cancer Institute. It is a major affiliate of Harvard Medical School and is located in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. NCI-designated Cancer Centers are a group of approximately 60 cancer research institutions in the United States supported by the National Cancer Institute. ...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the United States federal governments principal agency for cancer research and training, and the first institute of the present-day National Institutes of Health. ...
Shield of Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. ...
Longwood Medical and Academic Area (also known as Longwood Medical Area, LMA, or just Longwood) is a section of Boston with a high density of hospitals and biomedical research centers. ...
Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, The Hub of the Universe (The State House, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, is the hub of the Solar System), Athens of America, The Cradle of Revolution Location in Massachusetts Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas M. Menino(D) Area - City 232. ...
The origins of Dana-Farber date back to 1947 when Sidney Farber, MD, founded Children's Cancer Research Foundation. In 1974, it became known as the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute in honor of its founder. The support of the Charles A. Dana Foundation was acknowledged by incorporating Dana's name in 1983. Dr Sydney Farber, after whom the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is named Sidney Farber was a pediatric pathologist. ...
Dana-Farber employs about 3,150 people. There are more than 185,000 patient visits a year, and it is involved in some 200 clinical trials. It is internationally known for its research and clinical excellence. Dana-Farber is a member of the Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium.
In addition to being a principal teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber is also a federally designated Center for AIDS Research, and a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), a federally designated comprehensive cancer center. Providing advanced training in cancer treatment and research for an international faculty, Dana-Farber conducts community-based programs in cancer prevention, detection, and control throughout New England, and maintains joint programs with other Boston institutions affiliated with Harvard Medical School and the Partners Health Care System, including Brigham & Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dana-Farber is supported by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the generous support of numerous foundations and individuals who contribute to the Institute's individual research and clinic programs or to the Jimmy Fund, the principal charity of the Institute named for one of its child patients. The Boston Red Sox adopted the Jimmy Fund as its official charity in 1953, and since then, the two have established a deep bond — unlike any other in professional sports.
History of advances in cancer care and research at Dana-Farber
Dana-Farber has a long history of breakthrough discoveries in cancer care and research.
1947 - Dr. Sidney Farber leads a team of researchers who are the first in the world to attain temporary remissions of acute lymphocytic leukemia, the most common cancer in children.
1954 - Dr. Farber and his colleagues achieve the first remissions of Wilms' tumor of the kidney, a common form of childhood cancer, and boost cure rates from 40 percent to 85 percent.
1976 - Researchers at the Sidney Farber Cancer Center (now Dana-Farber) develop a new treatment for acute myelogenous leukemia that produces the first complete remissions of the disease in up to half of all patients.
1978 - Institute investigators develop combination chemotherapy for soft-tissue sarcomas, resulting in a 50-percent response rate.
1982 - Dana-Farber researchers develop and apply the CA-125 blood test for ovarian cancer. They also are among the first to suspect a relationship between the retrovirus that causes human T cell leukemia (HTLV-1) and that which causes AIDS (HIV-1).
1991 - Dana-Farber investigators help introduce the use of naturally occurring growth hormones following high-dose chemotherapy, making bone marrow transplantation safer and more effective.
1996 - Institute researchers dramatically advance the understanding of how HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, replicates and infects healthy cells. Science magazine heralds this discovery as its "Breakthrough of the Year."
1998 - A drug called Gleevec, the early work for which was done at Dana-Farber, achieves striking success in many patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia.
1999 - Working with colleagues at other hospitals, Dana-Farber scientists begin the first human studies of Endostatin, one of a new generation of compounds that arrest or shrink tumors by shutting off their blood supply.
2002 - Dana-Farber researchers find that Gleevec, a targeted therapy that achieved striking success against chronic myelogenous leukemia, can shrink and even eliminate tumors in some patients with a rare and otherwise incurable digestive-tract cancer called gastrointestinal stromal tumor.
2003 - Scientists at Dana-Farber and the Whitehead Institute find a gene "signature" in several types of tumors that suggests they are likely to spread to other parts of the body, potentially leading to tests for determining whether tumors have the potential to metastasize.
2005 - Dana-Farber scientists report that the drug gefitinib produces dramatic benefits in non-small cell lung cancer patients who carry an abnormal version of a key protein, a potentially life-saving discovery for tens of thousands of patients around the world every year.
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