The Cancer History Project

Oct 25 2024 45 ep. 49 mins 2
The Cancer History Project Podcast artwork

A podcast of oral histories and interviews with the people who have shaped oncology as we know it. The Cancer History Project is an initiative by The Cancer Letter, oncology's longest-running news publication. The Cancer History Project’s archives are available online at CancerHistoryProject.com.

  Health & Fitness
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How Susan Ellenberg went from school teacher to leading biostatistician

Oct 25 2024 45 mins  
In this episode, Susan Ellenberg, emerita professor of biostatistics, medical ethics, and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, describes her lifelong love of mathematics, how she accidentally became a biostatistician, and her well-rounded career in clinical trial design and analysis. As a child, Ellenberg was fascinated by a mathematical puzz

Latino oncology leaders discuss representation in clinical trials, translational research, and health care

Oct 11 2024 53 mins  
To mark Hispanic Heritage Month, in this episode, six cancer experts discuss Latino representation in clinical trials, translational research, and healthcare professions. Hispanic and Latino people comprise nearly 20% of the U.S. population, but less than 6% of physicians nationwide identify as Hispanic. “The pipeline issue continues to be a huge issue for us,” said Amelie Rami

Lung cancer couldn’t slow down physician and athlete Lawrence Phillips

Sep 06 2024 55 mins  
In this episode, Lawrence Phillips, an endocrinologist at Emory Clinic, a professor at Emory University School of Medicine, and medical director of the Clinical Studies Center at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, discusses pushing through lung cancer to continue doing what he loves—seeing patients, teaching, and conducting research. Something odd turned up in one of Phillips’s rou

Christy Erickson’s cancer diagnosis led to life as a motorcyclist and strongman competitor

Jul 12 2024 61 mins  
In this episode, stay-at-home mom Christy Erickson discusses how she went from a roundabout lung cancer diagnosis to riding a motorcycle and competing in strongman competitions. Erickson wasn’t worried about lung cancer when she was younger. Breast cancer had a stronghold on her family tree. Her mom died from it when Erickson was seven years old. She took preventative measures

2024 Karnofsky Award winner Lillian Siu talks about her career in phase I studies, ctDNA, and her mentor’s “evil red pencil”

May 10 2024 35 mins  
In this episode, 2024 David Karnofsky Memorial Award winner Lillian L. Siu reviews her career developing novel therapies in the phase I setting, the evolution of her field, and her mentor’s dreaded “evil red pencil.” Siu was among the first scientists to read out the signals of safety, pharmacology, and preliminary efficacy of therapeutic agents that ushered in a new era of c

Surviving lung cancer focused Morhaf Al Achkar’s career on addressing health disparities

Apr 19 2024 43 mins  
Something felt wrong during one of Morhaf Al Achkar’s regular runs on the treadmill in late 2016. He started gasping for breath. “It became really hard to run,” he said. “That sudden development of shortness of breath alarmed me.” Being a family physician in Indiana at the time, he asked a resident at the clinic where he worked to listen to his lungs. “There’s no air

How “Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book” has remained the “bible” for women with breast cancer since 1990

Mar 29 2024 30 mins  
When Stephanie Graff was a breast oncology fellow in 2010, one of her patients brought a marked up copy of “Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book” to an appointment. “One of my patients had brought it in and was using it almost as her cancer notebook, and had pages flagged and said, ’Well, what about this? What about this? It says here…,’” Graff, director of Breast Oncology

Weeks before death from sarcoma, Norm Coleman reflected on his career in radiation oncology, addressing health disparities

Mar 22 2024 65 mins  
Soon after he was diagnosed with a dedifferentiated liposarcoma, C. Norman Coleman reached out to The Cancer Letter and the Cancer History Project to initiate a series of interviews about his life and career. The plan was to keep going for as long as possible. Alas, only one interview–about an hour’s worth–got done. Coleman spoke with Otis Brawley and Paul Goldberg, co-editor

NIH ORWH’s Vivian Pinn on being the second Black woman graduate of UVA med school

Mar 01 2024 42 mins  
In this conversation, Vivian Pinn speaks with Robert Winn, guest editor of The Cancer Letter and the Cancer History Project during Black History Month, about the obstacles she faced as a medical student, how she incidentally helped integrate restaurants in Charlottesville in the 1960s, and her beginnings as a Research Fellow in Immunopathology at NIH. Pinn was the only African Amer

Roderic Pettigrew on a career as a “physicianeer” and the early days of the MRI: “You don’t make advances without technological innovation.”

Feb 23 2024 63 mins  
In this conversation, Roderick Pettigrew speaks with Robert Winn, guest editor of The Cancer Letter and the Cancer History Project during Black History Month, about Pettigrew’s contributions to research, how he became an early self-taught expert on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or the MRI, as well as when he became founding director of National Institute of Biomedical Imagi