WASHINGTON-OT Editorial Board Chair Robert C. Young, MD, has received the AACR Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research.
In accepting the honor, Young, Emeritus Chancellor of Fox Chase Cancer Center and a past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Cancer Society, and the International Gynecologic Cancer Society, and a recipient of ASCO's Distinguished Service Award for Scientific Leadership as well as the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research, who is known especially for his pioneering ovarian cancer research, made the following remarks:
"My thanks to the American Association for Cancer Research and the selection committee for this extraordinary recognition. It is particularly gratifying to receive this award in the footsteps of the other outstanding scientists and cancer research leaders who were the previous awardees. It is also meaningful that the AACR recognizes clinical research which often involves team science, where advances take place over years, and are based on the efforts of many. It is on behalf of the extraordinary teams at the Medicine Branch of the National Cancer Institute and at Fox Chase Cancer Center, who have been such a critical part of the success of this research, that I accept this award.
"Like many cancers, the road to progress in ovarian cancer treatment has been a long and difficult one, and the goal of curative treatment for most patients remains elusive. Nonetheless we have created a research infrastructure which didn't exist 40 years ago. This broad-based research enterprise will enable us to accelerate the pace of discovery, far beyond what was possible in the 1970s. Treatment advances are based on a myriad of basic as well as clinical discoveries, which join together in the mosaic of progress. Advances are rarely meteoric and more commonly, as in ovarian cancer, are stepwise. But we must not forget that, while they are stepwise, they are also relentless.
"In this era where biomedical research is under such extreme financial and political pressure, we must not be discouraged, nor constrain our scientific exploration or narrow our dreams. We must redouble our efforts to insure that progress continues and that cancer patients benefit. We owe these patients and their families the best we can deliver."