MOLECULAR ENGINEERS - Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Spring/Summer 2007 

Research and Care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute 

Including the 2006 

Annual Report 

MOLECULAR 

ENGINEERS 

Dana-Farber’s chemical 

biologists are using 

tiny molecules to study 

cancer machinery 

LYMPHOMA RESEARCH • TOMORROW’S NURSES • PATIENT-CAREGIVER BONDS

From the President 

The more we learn about cancer’s complex and 

resilient nature, the more we are driven to strike it 

from all sides. Here at Dana-Farber, we are doing 

just that – through research in our laboratories, care in 

our clinics, and outreach in the community to spur prevention 

and early detection. 

The stories in this issue of Paths of Progress illustrate 

that multipronged approach. On the subcellular level, 

Dana-Farber’s chemical biologists are using tiny molecules 

to help block abnormal proteins implicated in 

various cancers. On the patient-care front, physicianscientists 

are seeking ways to stifle the growing number 

of lymphoma cases, both here and nationally. Beyond 

the Institute’s walls, we are helping train more minority 

nurse-leaders and researchers, in part through a new joint 

program with the University of Massachusetts Boston. 

Our successes over the years have paid off in 

enhanced survivorship, as evidenced by the feature on 

“special bonds” between caregivers and their now-grown 

patients, and Evie Goldfine’s powerful blog account of her 

multiple encounters with cancer. 

Our ability to continue our wide-ranging assault on this 

disease depends in large part on the generosity of Dana- 

Farber’s friends. With help from a $1 billion fundraising 

campaign – the largest in the Institute’s history – we look 

forward to achieving the next round of breakthroughs and 

watching the development of our planned Yawkey Center 

for Cancer Care. 

Dana-Farber’s Mission Possible campaign gives all of 

us hope, the same kind of hope we have been offering 

patients and their families for the past 60 years. 

Edward J. Benz Jr., MD 

President, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute 

PATHS OF PROGRESS Spring/Summer 2007 

Volume 16, Number 1 

President, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Edward J. Benz Jr., MD 

Chief of Staff Stephen E. Sallan, MD 

Chief Medical Officer Lawrence N. Shulman, MD 

Chief Scientific Officer Barrett J. Rollins, MD, PhD 

Chief Clinical Research Officer Philip W. Kantoff, MD 

Chair, Medical Oncology James D. Griffin, MD 

Chair, Pediatric Oncology Stuart H. Orkin, MD 

Chair, Radiation Oncology Jay R. Harris, MD 

Chair, Executive Committee for Research David M. Livingston, MD 

Senior VP for Experimental Medicine Lee M. Nadler, MD 

Senior VP for Patient Care Services, Chief Nurse Patricia Reid Ponte, RN, DNSc, FAAN 

Senior VP for Research, Beverly R. Ginsburg, MBA 

Senior VP for Communications Steven R. Singer 

Director of Publications Paul Hennessy 

Editor Debra Ruder 

Design John DiGianni 

Associate Editor Robert Levy 

Articles Editor Saul Wisnia 

Staff Writers Christine Cleary, Richard Saltus 

Production Assistance Nicole Bedard, Patricia Cleary, Kathleen Raven, 

Kim Regensburg, Irina Zlobina 

Photography Sam Ogden, Shawn Henry (pp. 29-30) 

Paths of Progress is published twice a year by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s 

Department of Communications. If you have any comments or would like to be 

removed from the mailing list, please contact: 

Debra Ruder, Editor, Paths of Progress 

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Department of Communications 

44 Binney Street, Boston, MA 02115-6084 

(617) 632-4090 

debra_ruder@dfci.harvard.edu 

Copyright © 2007 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. All rights reserved. 

On the cover: A hydrocarbon “staple” 

at right stabilizes a mini-protein, 

illustrated here as ribbon and mesh. 

(Courtesy of Peter Kutchukian and 

Eric Smith) 

Correction about breast cancer study 

A story in the last issue of Paths of 

Progress about the Study of Tamoxifen 

and Raloxifene (STAR) should have stated 

that the drug raloxifene reduces the 

chances of breast cancer occurrence 

(not recurrence) in postmenopausal 

women at increased risk for the disease. 

Please note that raloxifene is used to treat 

osteoporosis, not breast cancer. For more 

information about the STAR trial and 

other ongoing breast cancer risk-reduction 

studies at Dana-Farber, visit www.danafarber.org 

and go to “Patient Care” and 

“Cancer Risk and Prevention.”

Contents 

Spring/Summer 2007 

5 Divide and conquer 

By Richard Saltus 

Sorting lymphomas by their genetic signatures allows investigators 

to better target existing therapies or develop new ones 

needed to fight this varied group of cancers. 

11 The power of two 

By Robert Levy 

The Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and University 

of Massachusetts Boston are working to train minority nurses 

and reduce disparities in oncology awareness and treatment. 

16 Molecular engineers 


Using advanced technology to build compounds from small 

molecules, chemical biologists are studying the genetic precursors 

for cancer and designing strategies to thwart them. 

24 Special bonds 

By Saul Wisnia 

As more children with cancer survive to adulthood, they are 

forging close ties with their caregivers while also educating 

them about aftereffects of pediatric treatment. 

29 First Person: Evie Goldfine 

Edited by Christine Cleary 

Through wise, witty, and poignant entries from her blog, 

lymphoma survivor Evie Goldfine discusses her encounters 

with cancer and reflects on loved ones lost. 

Departments 

2 Dateline DFCI 

20 Discoveries 

33 2006 Annual Report 

www.dana-farber.org

Dateline DFCI 

Dana-Farber’s $1 billion campaign to support top priorities 

To push cancer care and research to the next level, 

Dana-Farber this winter announced a $1 billion 

capital campaign. Mission Possible: The Dana- 

Farber Campaign to Conquer Cancer aims to help 

the Institute seize on a pivotal moment in cancer 

discovery and tap the latest knowledge and tools, as 

well as staff members’ talents and passion. 

“This year, physicians will diagnose another 1.5 million 

cancer cases in the United States,” notes Institute 

President Edward J. Benz Jr., MD. “The numbers are 

daunting, and the stakes are high. But Dana-Farber is 

uniquely primed to alter these statistics and rewrite 

cancer’s prognosis once and for all.” 

Recent advances have made possible the use of precise, 

tailored therapies to attack a growing number of 

cancers at the molecular level, yet personalized cancer 

treatments remain the exception, not the rule. Dana- 

Farber is poised to change this, according to Benz. 

“Building on our time-tested, translational research 

model of moving promising findings from the laboratory 

quickly into the clinic for the benefit of patients, 

we have created a blueprint for definitive action.” 

Reflecting the priorities outlined in the Institute’s 

Strategic Plan, the Mission Possible campaign seeks 

investments in four areas: $450 million for research and 

care; $100 million for technology, especially in the areas 

of chemical biology, computational biology, genomics, 

imaging, and proteomics; $150 million for a planned 

13-story clinical building, recently named the Yawkey 

Center for Cancer Care, thanks to a $30 million gift 

from the Yawkey Foundation; and $300 million for the 

Jimmy Fund and unrestricted funds – which provide 

flexible dollars to help address the Institute’s most 

pressing needs. 

Dana-Farber’s largest-ever fund drive comes at a time 

of extraordinary growth here. Outpatient visits and infusions 

grew by more than 40 percent between 2001 and 

2005, and projections show continued demand for services 

as the population ages and people live longer with 

cancer. In addition to helping recruit and retain top physicians 

and scientists, the campaign will help Dana-Farber 

provide a more welcoming, personalized experience for 

patients and their families. 

Mission Possible, which began its quiet phase in 

October 2003 and went public in January 2007, is 

already past the halfway mark in gifts and pledges 

from individuals, corporations, and foundations. As of 

February, it had raised more than $558 million. These 

contributions are essential for helping the Institute 

continue pursuing its goals. 

“For the first time in human history, we know what 

causes cancer,” Dana-Farber’s Chief Scientific Officer, 

Barrett Rollins, MD, PhD, told The Boston Globe in 

January. “We know it’s a genetic disease. ... Cancer is 

hundreds and hundreds of diseases, each with its own 

genetic changes. We see the path before us pretty clearly.” 

The campaign supports Dana-Farber’s high-tech research, carried out here by Yi Zhang and Gordon Freeman. 

2 PATHS OF P ROGRESS Spring/Summer 2007

Institute expands beyond Longwood Medical Area 

As Dana-Farber aims to serve a growing number 

of cancer patients, it is building or planning 

several suburban clinics – and locating some 

employees off-site – to ease overcrowding at its main 

campus in the Longwood Medical Area and prepare for 

the planned Yawkey Center for Cancer Care there. 

In a partnership between Dana-Farber/Brigham and 

Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) and Milford 

Regional Medical Center, construction is well under 

way for a two-story, 54,000-square-foot building in 

Milford, Mass., 35 miles southwest of Boston. Slated 

to open early in 2008, the new facility will offer exam 

rooms, chemotherapy infusion, radiation therapy, and 

diagnostic imaging. Patients and families are helping 

plan the design for the building, which will include a 

healing garden to provide a peaceful environment for 

cancer patients. 

Milford is the second “satellite” DF/BWCC campus 

for adult clinical care, following a program at Faulkner 

Hospital in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston 

that opened last June. Plans are under way for additional 

satellite centers in Weymouth, Mass., through an affiliation 

with South Shore Hospital, and in Londonderry, 

N.H., in partnership with New Hampshire Oncology- 

Hematology and Elliot Hospital. 

In addition, several Dana-Farber departments have 

moved away from the main campus over the past several 

years, with the “Harbor Campus” as the latest venue. 

Staff members from the Health Information Services, 

Materials Management, and Cancer Registry units now 

work in this 49,000-square-foot waterfront building in 

Boston’s Marine Industrial Park. The “Drydock” site 

will also store dozens of freezers for patient tissue samples 

and other specimens, and will eventually house 

other research activities. 

“There is an urgent need to expand our capacity as 

a clinical center and extend our leadership in cancer 

research,” explains Richard Shea, Dana-Farber’s vice 

president for Facilities Management. “These moves support 

the Institute’s master plan to meet these challenges.” 

Kudos abound for Dana-Farber and its science, medical staff 

Dana-Farber received full accreditation for its 

hospital and clinical laboratory programs after 

a three-day survey in late January-early February. 

Surveyors from the Joint Commission (formerly the 

Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare 

Organizations) praised the compassionate quality care 

they observed, the cleanliness and safety of the facility, 

and the knowledgeable staff. They also identified three 

non-care-related items needing improvement that the 

Institute began addressing immediately. 

“The surveyors’ parting comments were that this was 

one of the finest hospitals they have ever visited,” noted 

Dana-Farber President Edward J. Benz Jr., MD. 

In other news, Dana-Farber caregivers, scientists, and 

other staff members were recognized in recent months 

with awards, grants, and appointments for their outstanding 

and promising work. Here is a sampling of them: 

Several DFCI physicians were singled out at this 

year’s American Society of Hematology (ASH) conference, 

which drew thousands of hematologists from 

around the world. Among them was Kimberly 

Stegmaier, MD, an attending physician at Dana-Farber 

and Children’s Hospital Boston who received the organization’s 

first Joanne Levy, MD, Memorial Award for 

Outstanding Achievement. This is bestowed on an ASH 

scholar with the highest-scoring research abstract at 

the annual meeting. Stegmaier’s paper was titled 

“Modulating AML1-ETO with Signature-Based Small 

Molecule Library Screening.” 

In addition, Dana-Farber research efforts were featured 

in more than 200 abstracts during the December 

conference, held to address issues involving disorders of 

the blood and bone marrow. Five Dana-Farber doctors 

also led educational sessions there. 

Brain researcher Rosalind Segal, MD, PhD, received 

a 2006 Director’s Pioneer Award from the National 

Institutes of Health, a five-year, $2.5 million grant 

designed to support biomedical scientists of “exceptional 

creativity” conducting innovative research. 

The grant will fund studies to determine how sugar 

Spring/Summer 2007 P ATHS OF P ROGRESS 3

Dateline DFCI 

molecules provide information that spurs the production 

of stem cells in the brain, and whether targeting these 

specialized sugars can lead to new treatments for brain 

tumors and other cancers. 

Sarcoma expert George Demetri, MD, is now leading 

the Ludwig Center at Dana-Farber and Harvard Medical 

School, established with a $20 million gift last fall 

from the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Fund for Cancer 

Research. Dana-Farber is one of six leading U.S. academic 

institutions chosen to host a Ludwig Center; these 

now form a national network of collaborating institutes 

and investigators conducting cancer research. 

For her work on the fundamental biology of breast 

cancer, Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, recently earned the 

2006 Claire W. and Richard P. Morse Research Award. 

This Dana-Farber honor recognizes clinical or basic 

work “of the highest caliber.” Polyak leads a team investigating 

the biological mishaps that cause healthy breast 

cells to grow abnormally and evolve from a localized 

tumor into a cancer that spreads. 

Robert J. Mayer, MD, is the first holder of the 

Stephen B. Kay Family Professorship at Dana-Farber 

and Harvard Medical School. Mayer directs the 

Institute’s Center for Gastrointestinal Oncology, which 

focuses on diseases of the digestive system, including 

esophageal, pancreatic, liver, stomach, and colorectal 

cancers. The professorship was created and endowed by 

Institute Trustee Stephen B. Kay. 

Nurse-scientist Susan Bauer-Wu, PhD, RN, is principal 

investigator of the first federally funded, nurse-led, 

randomized clinical trial at Dana-Farber. The five-year 

study is exploring the effects of mindfulness meditation 

for cancer patients undergoing autologous bone marrow 

transplantation. Bauer-Wu is outgoing director of the 

Phyllis F. Cantor Center for Research in Nursing and 

Patient Care Services, and she is collaborating on the 

study with Ann LaCasce, MD, Mary Cooley, PhD, 

RN, and other staff members. 

Clinical research by Marshall Posner, MD, director 

of Head and Neck Oncology at Dana-Farber, and his 

colleagues was listed as a “notable” advance in cancer 

treatment in a 2006 year-end review by the Journal of 

Clinical Oncology. The study involved adding the drug 

Taxotere to standard chemotherapy for patients with 

advanced head and neck cancer. It showed a significant 

increase in the number of patients cured with 

the three-drug treatment. 

William Kaelin, 

MD, earned a 2006 

Doris Duke Distinguished 

Clinical 

Scientist Award for 

his research on 

tumor suppressor 

proteins. He was 

one of seven investigators 

nationally 

to receive $1.5 million 

each to use 

over five to seven 

years on translational 

(bench-tobedside) 

research 

and mentoring of 

Rosalind Segal earns grant. 

junior colleagues. 

The awards are sponsored by the Doris Duke 

Charitable Foundation. 

Dana-Farber recently published a 100-page toolkit to 

help other healthcare organizations set up programs 

that involve patients and families in the quality and 

safety of their care. The patient safety rounds guide 

can be viewed at www.dana-farber.org/toolkit. 

In the comings and goings category, Janet Shaw 

retired in February after 38 years of working in 

Dana-Farber’s clinical laboratories, most recently as 

manager of the Core Laboratories. These units focus on 

analyzing blood, bone marrow, tissue, and other bodily 

specimens for patients undergoing care. Her calm 

demeanor, positive attitude, technical knowledge, and 

managerial skills helped Shaw guide staff through an 

extraordinary period of change at Dana-Farber. 

Beverly R. Ginsburg, MBA, joined the Institute as 

senior vice president for research in November after 

serving as executive director at the University of 

Pennsylvania’s comprehensive cancer center. Ginsburg, 

also associate director for administration of the 

Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, oversees a 

team providing the administrative infrastructure to 

support faculty members and facilitate the conduct 

of outstanding research. Ginsburg is dedicated to 

helping find better ways to prevent and treat cancer. 

“Part of the wonder of the scientific process,” 

she says, “is establishing the conditions in which 

scientists can best make use of their creativity.” 


Sorting 

lymphomas 

by gene 

signatures 

aids drug 

targeting 

Divide and conquer 

By Richard Saltus 

Scientists are dividing 

lymphomas into different 

genetic types based 

on the mutations that 

cause them. Above, 

Jennifer Brown uses a 

family tree to study 

rare cases of inherited 

lymphoma. 

In the winter of 2002, rapidly worsening leg pains and near-paralysis sent Carolyn Punzelt 

to an emergency room, where physicians discovered tumors encroaching on her spinal cord. 

Radiation treatment shrunk the cancer, forestalling immediate danger. After several biopsies, 

the Castine, Maine, woman was diagnosed with an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma 

(NHL), a cancer of disease-fighting white blood cells. 

Despite their scary description, about 50 percent of fast-growing, aggressive non-Hodgkin’s 

cases can be cured with chemotherapy. Punzelt’s cancer, unfortunately, fell into the other half. 

Months of standard chemotherapy regimens failed to stop her disease and dangerously weakened 

her immune system. 

“At that point my oncologist said, ‘OK, you’re going to Dana-Farber,’” recalls Punzelt. “He 

said, ‘If you don’t do anything, I give you less than a year to live.’” 

That was in 2003. Today Punzelt is 75 and well, with no detectable cancer. A drug that was in 

clinical trials at Dana-Farber, enzastaurin, did what the toxic, cell-killing chemotherapy could 

not – put her in long-term remission. Taken as a pill, enzastaurin pinpointed a precise genetic 

defect within her cancer cells and shut down their growth. There were few side effects. Her hair, 

decimated by the chemotherapy, grew back. 

Continued on next page 


“We’re very excited about these new, specific agents. 

They are going after what went wrong in the cancer 

cell to begin with.” — Ann LaCasce, MD 

At Dana-Farber’s pharmacy, 

Carolyn Punzelt picks up a supply 

of the experimental drug that has 

kept her lymphoma in remission 

for more than three years. 

“It’s really miraculous,” she says. 

“I’m active in a number of groups; 

I’m in the vestry of my church, and 

I live in a huge old house that needs 

a lot of work.” Oncologists in 

Maine monitor her remission, and 

she makes occasional 500-mile 

round trips to Dana-Farber/Brigham 

and Women’s Cancer Center to see 

her doctor, David C. Fisher, MD, 

and to pick up enzastaurin supplies. 

Punzelt’s story is more than a single 

patient’s reprieve; it represents a 

still-evolving, divide-and-conquer 

strategy using technology that takes 

“snapshots” of how all the genes in 

a cell are behaving. The approach is 

this: Separate tumors into subgroups 

by their distinctive genetic 

activity patterns. Using standard 

therapies, treat the cancers whose 

profiles suggest favorable outcomes. 

For those with poor-outcome 

gene profiles, develop and 

test new drugs to attack abnormal 

links in the cancer cell’s chain of 

molecular signals, or “pathways.” 

“We have a major commitment to 

understanding the genetic pathways 

that enable lymphoma cells to survive, 

and manipulating them with 

rational, targeted therapy,” says 

Margaret Shipp, MD, a Dana-Farber 

oncologist and director of the Dana- 

Farber/Harvard Cancer Center 

Lymphoma Program. 

Different diseases 

Lymphoma originates in the network 

of lymph nodes, spleen, and 

bone marrow that forms part of the 

immune system (see box at right). 

The cancer may first be detected in 

lymph nodes in the chest, abdomen, 

or neck. As the malignant cells 

crowd out healthy white blood cells, 

patients typically experience pain, 

fatigue, night sweats, and swollen 

lymph nodes, and become susceptible 

to dangerous infections. 

Hodgkin’s lymphoma (also known 

as Hodgkin’s disease) is a special 

type that makes up about 12 percent 

of all lymphomas. The cancerous 

blood cells in Hodgkin’s lymphoma 

have a distinctive appearance, and 

incidence of the disease spikes in 

young adults, then rises again in 

later life. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas 

make up the remainder – a 

heterogeneous collection of lymphoma 

types. Unlike Hodgkin’s, the 

NHLs can occur at all ages, but 

they also increase in frequency as 

people age. 

Many of the 1,200 new lymphoma 

patients seen at Dana-Farber 

every year participate in clinical 

trials testing combinations of drugs, 

both conventional and experimental, 

as well as radiation therapy, stem 

The 

lymphatic 

system 

Lymphomas are 

cancers of the 

lymphatic system, 

a network 

of nodes, vessels, 

ducts, tissues, 

and organs that 

distribute infection-fighting 

blood cells 

throughout the 

body. The lymphatic 

system 

plays a major 

role in the 

immune system. 


cell transplants, and cancer vaccines. 

“We’re very excited about these 

new, specific agents,” says Ann 

LaCasce, MD, a member of the 

lymphoma team who heads several 

clinical studies. “They are going 

after what went wrong in the cancer 

cell to begin with, and that’s very 

different from trying to kill dividing 

cells [with conventional treatments].” 

These newer “targeted” therapies 

are designed to attack the genetic 

pathways that cause cells to grow 

and divide in an unregulated way. 

Devices called microarrays, or 

“gene chips,” sift a cancer cell’s 

DNA and record genes that are 

unusually active or inactive compared 

to the same genes in normal 

cells. The resulting pattern is the 

cell’s genetic signature. 

Several years ago, Shipp and colleagues 

including Todd Golub, MD, 

analyzed genetic activity in tumors 

known as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma 

(DLBCL), the most common 

non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the 

Family ties: Searching for genetic clues in lymphoma 

What causes lymphoma to develop in one person 

but not another Aside from a few known or suspected 

risk factors such as aging, a compromised 

immune system, viruses, and environmental exposures, 

most forms of this blood cancer appear to result from random 

gene mutations – simply bad luck. 

A small number of cases, however, show evidence of a 

family connection. And therein may lie clues to the identification 

of lymphoma-causing genes. 

“There are reports of families in which several closely 

related individuals have lymphoma, and identical twins have 

a higher risk of both developing the disease than do fraternal 

twins,” says Jennifer Brown, MD, PhD, a physicianscientist 

in Dana-Farber’s Lymphoma Program. “These 

observations suggest that the development of lymphoma 

may have an inherited genetic component.” 

For the past two years, Brown and co-workers have asked 

all new lymphoma patients seen at Dana-Farber to complete 

detailed family history questionnaires. At last year’s 

American Society of Hematology meeting, they reported 

that 7.8 percent of new non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients 

had a first-degree relative (parent, sibling, or child) with a 

related lymphoma. For Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the figure was 

5.4 percent, and for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL, a 

form of lymphoma) the number rose to 12.6 percent. Brown 

and co-workers have enrolled more than 125 families and 

200 individuals in a more detailed study of families with at 

least two individuals who have lymphoma. 

With blood and tumor samples from these participants 

in hand, Brown is comparing the DNA and gene activity 

in familial lymphoma tumors with DNA and gene 

activity in isolated, or “sporadic,” tumors. She hopes 

to identify genes that are abnormal 

in the familial cases, then 

determine whether they are also 

culprits in the more common 

sporadic lymphomas. 

“There are a lot of hypotheses 

about the types of genes that 

could lead to inherited lymphoma 

and how they might do 

so,” Brown explains. “We’re in 

the early stages of investigation.” 

Jennifer Brown 

A welcome boost to her research has come in the form of 

financial support from a familial lymphoma patient, Marilyn 

Lipton Okonow, her husband, Dale, and her brother, Roger 

Lipton. Marilyn came to Dana-Farber in 2005 for treatment of 

her diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and in relating her family 

history, she told Brown that her father had survived CLL for 

20 years before dying at age 90 from other causes. 

“When Dr. Brown told me the two may be related, I didn’t 

waste a lot of time wondering where I got my lymphoma,” says 

Okonow, though it is impossible to know for certain whether 

the family link was involved. She says she is doing fine, and 

Brown welcomes the support as she searches for the factor, or 

factors, linking shared genes and the risk of lymphoma. – RS 


United States and the type that 

affected Punzelt. About half of the 

patients with DLBCL and other 

aggressive lymphomas can be cured, 

while the remaining cases resist 

treatment. Physicians can’t yet accurately 

determine which group an 

individual patient belongs to. 

The Shipp team found a distinctive 

genetic profile in patients 

whose DLBCL recurred no matter 

what therapy they received. This 

gene profile pointed to overactivity 

in a signaling pathway called 

PKC-beta. It was this precise 

abnormality that enzastaurin, 

the drug that saved Punzelt, was 

supposed to block. 

Shipp reported in late 2006 that 

of the 55 patients with relapsed, 

poor-prognosis DLBCL who 

received enzastaurin, four of them 

– including Punzelt – had dramatic, 

long-term responses. Despite this 

small number, Shipp says, the fact 

that even four patients with 

advanced, previously treated disease 

had such outcomes “tells us 

that the cell signaling pathway 

blocked by enzastaurin may be 

particularly relevant to the survival 

of stubbornly resistant DLBCL 

tumors,” and that targeting this 

pathway is a promising line of 

attack. A larger clinical trial has 

been launched. 

Choosing therapies 

With the technology to sort 

patients into subgroups according 

to their tumors’ genetic profiles, 

clinical trials can be more tightly 

focused and powerful than studying 

drugs in clusters of patients with a 

variety of profiles. Genetic profiling, 

however, isn’t routinely used 

yet in lymphoma treatment. With 

aggressive lymphomas, physicians 

Arnie Freedman (front, center) with members of the Dana-Farber/ 

Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center Lymphoma Program, including 

(first row, from left) Natalie Long, Elizabeth Ronan, Gabrielle Basile, 

Cynthia Vokey, Ann LaCasce, Barbara Virchick; second row: Michele 

Walsh, David C. Fisher, Virginia Dalton, Eric Jacobsen, Jennifer Brown, 

Andrea Ng, Hazel Reynolds. 

choose therapies based on standard 

tests and experience. 

At a routine checkup three years 

ago, Darren Baker, a drug company 

biochemist from Hingham, Mass., 

mentioned he was having difficulty 

swallowing. An X-ray quickly 

revealed a fist-sized tumor in his 

chest that proved to be DLBCL. 

After eight cycles of chemotherapy 

plus rituximab (Rituxan), a form of 

immunotherapy, Baker was in complete 

remission; moreover, he has 

ridden in the Pan-Massachusetts 

Challenge bike-a-thon to benefit 

Dana-Farber the last three years. 

Unlike aggressive forms of the 

disease, slow-growing “indolent” 


lymphomas don’t pose an immediate 

threat to life, but they generally 

cannot be cured. Patients with these 

cancers, of which follicular lymphoma 

is the most common type, tend 

to have recurrences that become 

progressively more difficult to 

defeat. However, patients may live 

for years, and sometimes decades, 

with the disease. 

Retired civil engineer Gerald 

Rourke of Newburyport, Mass., for 

example, was diagnosed with follicular 

lymphoma after feeling swollen 

lymph nodes protruding from under 

his collarbone. The cancer responded 

well to treatment, but has returned 

three times – and been beaten back 

each time by therapies he received 

in clinical trials at Dana-Farber. 

His doctor, Arnie Freedman, MD, 

clinical director of the Dana-Farber/ 

Brigham and Women’s Cancer 

Center Lymphoma Program, says 

admiringly, “Like the Energizer 

Bunny, Gerry just keeps going and 

going and going.” 

NHL cases in 2007, compared with 

53,900 as recently as 2002. Deaths 

from NHL however, are estimated at 

18,660 in 2007, down from 24,400 

in 2002. 

The improvements can be credited 

to better and safer use of combination 

chemotherapy, stem cell transplants, 

radiation treatment, and the 

remarkable success of monoclonal 

antibody-based drugs such as rituximab. 

The latter are proteins made in 

the laboratory that mimic the body’s 

natural immune weapons for recognizing 

and disabling foreign intruders 

such as microbes. 

Rituximab is designed to latch onto 

an antigen, CD20, an identifying 

molecule on the surface of the malignant 

B-lymphocytes. These cancer 

cells exist in most lymphoma types, 

and rituximab kills them by activating 

certain parts of the patient’s 

immune system. The CD20 antigen 

was discovered more than 25 years 

ago by Lee Nadler, MD, now Dana- 

Farber’s senior vice president for 

Experimental Medicine, paving the 

way for monoclonal antibody treatment 

for lymphomas. Rituximab is 

routinely used with combination 

chemotherapy to treat both aggressive 

and indolent lymphomas. 

When given after chemotherapy as 

maintenance, it appears to prolong 

remissions in patients with the slowgrowing 

type. 

“Rituximab has substantially 

increased cure rates in diffuse large 

B-cell lymphoma,” says Freedman. 

“For indolent lymphomas, the addition 

of rituximab has improved 

remission rates, the length of 

remissions, and overall survival 

for these patients.” 

Another form of immunotherapy, 

cancer vaccines, are designed to 

stimulate the body’s natural defenses 

Survival on the rise 

The outlook for patients with 

lymphoma has brightened over the 

past few decades. Hodgkin’s lymphoma 

is considered one of the most 

curable kinds of cancer, with an 

86 percent five-year survival rate. 

For non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas, 

five-year survival has doubled, from 

31 percent in the early 1960s to 

62.9 percent in the period 1996- 

2002, according to the Leukemia 

and Lymphoma Society. 

In fact, NHL mortality continues 

to fall, even as the incidence has 

increased significantly for the past 

several decades. This trend has no 

single explanation and is not well 

understood. The American Cancer 

Society projects almost 63,200 new 

Using microarray technology to capture a cell’s genetic signature, 

Margaret Shipp and her colleagues identify targets for precisely 

aimed “smart” drugs. 


So much activity in basic and clinical research reflects the immense 

amount being learned about the molecular underpinnings of lymphoma. 

to recognize and attack tumors – but 

not prevent them. A clinical trial of 

a vaccine made from the cells of 

patients with relapsed follicular 

lymphoma is expected to open this 

year under the leadership of Dana- 

Farber’s Eric Jacobsen, MD, and 

Glenn Dranoff, MD. 

Molecular targets 

Among the newer compounds 

designed to hit molecular targets 

is one that blocks an overactive cell 

growth switch called spleen tyrosine 

kinase, or syk, that was first implicated 

by the genetic profiling of B- 

cell lymphomas. Another new agent 

inhibits an errant enzyme pathway 

known as PI3K. Still another target 

for new treatments is the protein 

Bcl-2, which in abnormal amounts 

turns cancer cells into renegade survivalists. 

Some compounds aimed at 

blocking Bcl-2 are being tested in 

early clinical trials, and more sophis- 

ticated versions are being developed 

in Dana-Farber laboratories. 

Targeting Bcl-2 is a strategy 

based on pioneering research by 

the late Stanley J. Korsmeyer, MD, 

who led Dana-Farber’s Program in 

Molecular Oncology. Korsmeyer 

studied programmed cell death, or 

apoptosis, a natural process intended 

to rid the body of damaged or 

otherwise abnormal cells. His key 

insight was that cancer can be 

caused not only by cells growing 

out of control, but also by cells failing 

to die – and that cancer cells 

use the Bcl-2 molecule to avoid 

dying as they should. Blocking 

Bcl-2 activity thus became a new 

approach to fighting the disease. 

One of the most promising 

anti-Bcl-2 candidates is Abbott 

Laboratories’ investigational compound 

ABT-737, expected to begin 

trials in patients with lymphoma 

and small-cell lung cancer at Dana- 

Darren Baker, left, survived aggressive lymphoma thanks to a combination 

of drugs and the care of oncologist Arnie Freedman. 

Farber and other centers this year. 

Anthony Letai, MD, PhD, formerly 

in Korsmeyer’s laboratory, 

says his group has tested ABT-737 

against lab-grown chronic lymphocytic 

leukemia (CLL) cells 

with striking results. “This drug is 

a member of a totally new class of 

agents with the potential to be a 

major addition to how we treat 

cancer,” Letai says. 

Loren Walensky, MD, PhD, 

another former Korsmeyer group 

colleague, is developing in his 

laboratory a “toolbox” of small 

peptides – fragments of proteins – 

that trigger programmed cell 

death. Walensky and chemical 

biologist Gregory Verdine, PhD, 

modified a key portion of a prodeath 

molecule and showed that 

when given to mice with lymphoma, 

it slowed the cancer’s 

advance. (See related story, p. 16.) 

So much activity in basic and 

clinical research reflects the 

immense amount being learned 

about the molecular underpinnings 

of lymphoma, and the creative 

energy directed to translating these 

findings into improved treatments. 

“The development of targeted 

therapies for lymphoma brings a 

lot of hope to patients,” says Hildy 

Dillon, a vice president at the 

Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, 

which supports research at Dana- 

Farber and other centers. “That’s 

why it’s important for patients 

to stay informed about clinical 

trials, discuss them with their 

oncologists, or have their cases 

reviewed in a center such as Dana- 

Farber that participates in lymphoma 

clinical research.” 

10 P ATHS OF P ROGRESS Spring/Summer 2007

Nursing leaders Greer Glazer (left) of 

UMass Boston and Patricia Reid Ponte 

of Dana-Farber and Brigham and 

Women’s Hospital chat at the UMass 

Boston campus. 

The power 

of two 


The Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center 

and University of Massachusetts Boston team up 

to train nurses, reduce health disparities 

When Paul Fonteyn 

became provost and vice 

president for academic 

affairs at the University of 

Massachusetts’ Boston campus in 

2002, he didn’t need a tutorial on 

health inequalities in the United 

States, or the nursing profession’s 

potential to reduce them. 

As an administrator at San 

Francisco State University, home 

to a large percentage of racial and 

ethnic minority students, Fonteyn 

was well aware that some groups 

have higher cancer rates, and less 

access to care, than others. He also 

knew that in many parts of the 

country the ranks of hospital nurses 

are not as ethnically diverse as the 

communities they serve – and that 

nursing schools and hospitals could 

work together to solve the problem. 

At a conference on partnerships 

between cancer centers and community 

organizations, Fonteyn met a 

particularly like-minded group: 

leaders of the Dana-Farber/Harvard 

Cancer Center (DF/HCC), a collection 

of more than 900 cancer 

scientists at seven Harvard-affiliated 

hospitals and schools. “My very 

first meeting as UMB [UMass 

Boston] provost was not even on my 


own campus, but at Dana-Farber, 

with people who were interested in 

this project,” he recalls. 

That session planted the seed for 

further meetings between UMB and 

DF/HCC representatives. From initial 

gatherings of a half-dozen or 

so administrators and leaders, the 

meetings gradually began attracting 

faculty from both organizations, 

including biomedical researchers, 

nursing specialists, computing 

experts, and others. 

In 2005, after two years of planning 

and preparation, the group successfully 

competed for a five-year, 

$4.3 million U-56 grant from the 

National Cancer Institute, awarded to 

projects that link minority-serving 

institutions and NCI-designated 

Comprehensive Cancer Centers. The 

grant will fund a new graduate training 

program for nurses, as well as 

other initiatives (see box at right). 

The nursing program will commence 

this fall, with a new doctoral degree 

track, more research opportunities, 

and community outreach experiences 

becoming available to graduate students 

– particularly members of 

underrepresented minorities – at 

the UMB College of Nursing and 

Health Sciences. 

“The goal of the nursing training 

program is to reduce cancer disparities 

in Boston neighborhoods – to 

help people lower their risk of cancer 

and make sure they have the 

knowledge and resources to seek 

treatment,” says the project’s coleader, 

Patricia Reid Ponte, RN, 

DNSc, FAAN, senior vice president 

for Patient Care Services and chief 

nurse at Dana-Farber. “In line with 

that, we’re hoping to attract more 

minority students to careers in 

nursing, provide more training in 

community settings, and enable 

students to conduct research 

with DF/HCC nurse-scientists 

as their mentors.” 

UMass Boston and the Dana- 

Farber/Harvard Cancer Center are 

natural partners for this endeavor, 

Fonteyn adds: “UMB is an institution 

that has an urban mission, and 

reducing health disparities is a quintessentially 

urban issue. Dana-Farber 

has been dedicated to overcoming 

cancer disparities in the community 

as part of its work in cancer prevention. 

From our very first meetings, 

there has been an enthusiasm and 

interest for this project that has been 

rewarding to be part of.” 

On the fast track 

The U-56 nursing training program 

has two major components: 

a “fast-track” Bachelor of Scienceto-PhD 

program that nursing students 

can complete in four years, 

and a new focus on cancer care and 

health disparities in graduate nursing 

training. Both will take students 

outside traditional hospital environments 

and help introduce them to 

the world of nursing research. 

The fast-track program addresses 

a problem that some are calling a 

public health crisis: a shortage of 

faculty at nursing schools across the 

country. The average age of doctorally 

trained nurse-educators in the 

United States is about 57 for full 

professors, according to the grant 

application. As more of these senior 

faculty retire, the pool of younger 

instructors is too small to replace 

them. Nationally, there has been an 

average increase of only 31 doctoral 

nursing students each year for the 

past half-decade. 

The shortfall is having ripple 

effects throughout the healthcare 

system. Fewer faculty translates into 

fewer openings for students. In a 

recent survey, two-thirds of U.S. 

nursing schools cited faculty shortages 

as a reason for not accepting 

all qualified applicants. At a time 

when many hospitals are struggling 

to hire enough registered nurses, 

nursing schools do not have enough 

graduates to fill the gap. 

The problem is compounded by 

an especially severe shortage of 

minorities in the profession. Only 

12 percent of registered nurses are 

members of minority groups, compared 

to one-third of the American 

Joint projects explore 

protocols and prayer 

Nursing training is the centerpiece 

of Dana-Farber’s alliance with 

UMass Boston, but the partnership 

is expanding into other areas as well. 

The federal U-56 grant supports a variety 

of pilot projects involving DFCI and 

UMB faculty, including: 

• 

Obesity/Weight Loss Intervention for 

African-American Women 

• 

Educating Underserved Communities 

About Cancer Clinical Trials 

• 

Training Minority Clinical Psychology 

Doctoral Students to be Cancer 

Researchers 

• 

Understanding Prayer as a Coping 

Mechanism Among Cancer Patients 

• A Boston-Cambridge-Quincy 

Metropolitan Dominican Immigrant 

Household Survey 


Nursing demands a combination of compassion and clinical 

expertise, as demonstrated by Dana-Farber nurses (left 

to right) Elizabeth Colon, Demetra McDonald, and Teresa 

Mazeika, pictured here with Len Bower. 

population. Among nurses holding 

doctorate degrees, the percentages 

are even smaller. 

The fast-track program tackles 

these issues and more as a group. 

The program is intended primarily 

for underrepresented minority 

students, and it focuses on health 

policy – long a hallmark of the 

UMass nursing curriculum. 

The emphasis on minority recruitment, 

cancer care, research, and 

community involvement taps the 

strengths of UMB and DF/HCC, 

says the Dean of UMass Boston’s 

College of Nursing and Health 

Sciences Greer Glazer, RN, CNP, 

PhD, FAAN, who helped lead the 

effort. “UMass Boston is the most 

diverse four-year institution of 

higher education in New England. 

About 40 percent of the university’s 

student population – and 30 percent 

of the college of nursing’s – consists 

of students of color,” she notes. 

For its part, the Dana-Farber/ 

Harvard Cancer Center is not only 

a bastion of research, including 

nursing research, but also of neighborhood 

outreach projects that 

already involve UMB nursing students, 

says Reid Ponte, who is also 

the director of Oncology Nursing 

and Clinical Services at Brigham 

and Women’s Hospital. Oncology 

nurses at all DF/HCC hospitals – 

Dana-Farber, Brigham and Women’s, 

Massachusetts General Hospital, 

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical 

Center, and Children’s Hospital 

Boston – will provide research and 

clinical training to the students. 

“Dana-Farber’s Phyllis F. Cantor 

Center for Research in Nursing and 

Patient Care Services provides a 

base for research into the cancer 

patient experience, including life 

during and after cancer treatment 


and the impact of the disease on 

families,” Reid Ponte remarks. The 

center’s nurse-scientists “are leading 

studies in areas ranging from 

smoking cessation to stress reduction 

for patients. They and their 

counterparts at other DF/HCC hospitals 

are an invaluable resource 

for students.” 

These specialists will serve as 

mentors in both the fast-track and 

regular-track PhD nursing programs. 

“Our aim is to help aspiring nurseresearchers 

acquire the skills to 

become independent investigators,” 

says the Cantor Center’s Susan 

Bauer-Wu, DNSc, RN. 

Approximately one-tenth of 

1 percent of U.S. nurses currently 

hold research doctorates. “Traditionally, 

nursing has been a 

practice-based discipline, and 

there hasn’t been a widespread 

awareness of the opportunities 

and need for nurse scientists,” 

Bauer-Wu continues. “That’s 

changing. The need for evidencebased 

research and the wider 

appreciation of the quality of 

life of cancer patients and their 

families underscores the value 

of nursing research.” 

Ending inequities 

The second part of the U-56 nurse 

training program – incorporating 

course work in cancer disparities into 

the nursing curriculum – will broaden 

students’ knowledge of the social, 

economic, and political aspects of 

healthcare. They’ll learn about the 

historical conditions that have caused 

some groups to be at increased risk 

of cancer, and about efforts to reduce 

such inequalities. 

This spring, eight UMB undergraduate 

nursing students assigned to 

Dana-Farber for their communityhealth 

rotation will help develop a 

Nursing students spread 

healthful messages 

Each semester since 2004, a group of eight UMass 

Boston nursing students has come to Dana-Farber 

for their community-health rotations, working in 

patient-care areas under the direction of preceptors. 

Students also perform a “capstone” project – a final 

assignment to be completed before graduation – involving 

community outreach. They select a community to 

work in, assess the area’s health needs, choose a problem 

to focus on, and develop a program to address it, 

says Dana-Farber’s Lynn Thompson, RN, OCN, who 

directs the rotations. 

Projects developed and implemented by the 

students include: 

• A smoking and lung cancer prevention program 

delivered at the Roxbury Boys’ and Girls’ Club 

• A health fair at a Mattapan church focusing on 

diabetes, obesity, and colon cancer 

• A booth at a UMass Boston health fair offering 

information on human papillomavirus, which is 

linked to cervical cancer 

Dana-Farber nurse educator Lynn Thompson (second 

from right) and nursing students (left to right) Entela 

Topalli, Lisa Travers, and Kerry Rodden conducted 

blood pressure screenings and provided general 

health education at Hanscom Air Force Base last year. 

• A program on skin health offered at the UMB College 

of Nursing and Health Sciences 

• 

Participation in health fairs at Hanscom Air Force 

Base in Bedford, Mass., and at Rosie’s Place, a shelter 

for poor and homeless women in Boston 


“We’re hoping to attract more minority students to careers in nursing, 

provide more training in community settings, and enable students to 

conduct research...” — Patricia Reid Ponte, RN, DNSc, FAAN 

smoking prevention program for elementary 

school children in South 

Boston, a section of the city with 

high rates of lung cancer mortality 

and cigarette smoking among adults. 

Marion Winfrey, MSN, EdD, associate 

dean of the College of Nursing 

and Health Sciences at UMB, and 

Lynn Thompson, RN, MPH, OCN, a 

nurse educator at Dana-Farber, have 

met with Boston Public School 

administrators to discuss how the 

program can be integrated into the 

existing school curriculum. “Our 

goal is for the nursing students, 

under faculty supervision, to work 

with school nurses, parents, students, 

teachers, and tobacco experts at 

DFCI,” says Winfrey. Plans call for 

the pilot program to be delivered in a 

South Boston elementary school this 

spring and expanded in the fall. 

“We hope there will be opportunities 

in the fall for students in the 

master’s nursing program and the 

new PhD fast-track program to 

become involved in research and policy 

development projects through 

this initiative,” says Thompson, who 

directs the UMB student nursing 

rotation at Dana-Farber. “It will teach 

children about smoking’s effect on 

their bodies and about the importance 

of good decision making. 

We hope the nursing students, who 

come from diverse backgrounds, 

can serve as role models for the 

children as well.” 

Dana-Farber and UMass Boston 

have been collaborating on community 

education projects for undergraduate 

nursing students since 2004. 

The new program is viewed as the 

beginning, rather than the fulfillment, 

of a partnership with Boston public 

schools. “We hope it will be the start 

of a relationship that lasts a long 

time,” Thompson asserts. 

Community learning experiences 

such as these can powerfully affect 

students’ perception of their future 

role as nurses, according to Reid 

Ponte. “For these young people to be 

successful, they need to understand 

how presence and professionalism 

play out in the community. Opportunities 

like this can assure that they’re 

aware of those responsibilities.” 

Setting the foundation 

The U-56 project is the result 

of work by dozens of people at 

DF/HCC and UMass Boston over the 

past five years, including nurse leaders 

at each DF/HCC hospital. Once 

the decision to apply for the grant 

was made, Dana-Farber’s Karen 

Emmons, PhD, associate director of 

DF/HCC’s Initiative to Eliminate 

Cancer Disparities, and Karen Burns 

White, its deputy director, led the 

effort to build an infrastructure of 

cooperation between the two institutions. 

Sarah Weiler, PhD, of Research 

Administration at Dana-Farber was 

instrumental as well, particularly 

in the basic science components of 

the partnership. 

“The NCI requires that institutions 

have a framework of collaborative 

efforts already in place, on which 

the U-56 grant can build,” Emmons 

explains. “We created an administrative 

structure with representatives 

from both organizations, 

including internal and external 

advisory committees. We also 

formed a core group to plan and 

evaluate the project, as well as a 

group to organize pilot studies 

involving faculty at DF/HCC 

and UMB.” The internal working 

groups included representatives 

of all DF/HCC hospitals. 

When the grant application 

was submitted, it carried a principal 

investigator at each organization: 

Emmons, who is also a 

professor at the Harvard School 

of Public Health, and Roderick 

Jensen, PhD, the Alton Brann 

Distinguished Professor of Physics, 

Biology, and Mathematics 

at UMass Boston. 

Ambitious as it is, the U-56 

effort is seen as a foundation for 

much more extensive collaborations 

in the future. Leaders hope 

to apply in a few years for another 

federal grant to fund a major 

expansion of the alliance. 

The partnership that has 

grown between UMB and 

DF/HCC is unique in Greer 

Glazer’s experience as a university 

administrator. “Usually such 

programs are designed by the 

academic institution, which then 

invites the hospital to join as a 

participant,” she says. “In this 

case, both organizations have 

been involved from the 

very beginning.” 


Molecular 

engineers 

How chemical biologists 

explore the workings of cells 


For every job, there is a tool – except, it might 

be said, in the field of cancer research. Despite 

galloping advances in biological knowledge, 

scientists have had no means of grappling with most 

of the malfunctioning machinery in cancer cells. 

An estimated 80 percent of the abnormal proteins 

involved in cancer are unreachable with existing classes 

of compounds, either because such compounds cannot 

get inside the cell or because “pits” on the surface of 

target proteins can’t accommodate them. As a result, 

researchers find themselves knowing very well which 

proteins they’d like to block with drug molecules, but 

lacking the means to do so. 

Enter the field of chemical biology, a relatively young 

discipline in which investigators use very small molecules 

to construct compounds of precise size and shape. 

The diminutive dimensions and key-like structure of 

such compounds give them an extraordinary versatility. 

They enable scientists to turn cell machinery on and off 

with almost pinpoint control. They provide a novel way 

of interrogating “suspect” genes to see if they’re 

involved in disease. And they vastly expand the pool 

of diseased genes and proteins – known as “druggable 

targets” in medical parlance – that can be attacked 

with therapies. 

Chemical biology has “cancer relevance” written all 

over it, which explains why it is part of Dana-Farber’s 

Strategic Plan. “The beauty of small molecules, from 

the standpoint of cancer, is that they allow us to alter 

the natural history of the disease process,” says Greg 

Verdine, PhD, who directs the Chemical Biology 

Initiative at Dana-Farber and is the Erving Professor of 

Chemistry in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and 

Sciences. Because cancer arises from a series of incorrect 

or incoherent messages between genes, the field 

A mini-protein locked into shape by a hydrocarbon 

“staple” represents a new approach to understanding 

and treating cancer. (Courtesy of Peter Kutchukian and 

Eric Smith) 

is uniquely capable of interrupting those messages, 

decoding them, and showing where they’ve gone astray. 

Chemical biology’s rise to prominence, Verdine notes, 

results from the growing “democratization” of biology 

and chemistry – the advent of technology that enables 

chemists to easily perform certain biological procedures, 

and biologists to do some chemistry. 

The partnership between Dana-Farber and Harvard’s 

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology grew 

out of that same sense of lowered barriers. “By associating 

with Harvard, Dana-Farber is connected to one of 

the foremost centers for synthetic chemistry [the construction 

of new chemical compounds] in the world,” 

says Verdine, who now splits his time between his 

Cambridge laboratory and the Institute. “When I get 

on the elevator in the Smith laboratories at Dana-Farber, 

I find myself riding with patients confronting their disease. 

That doesn’t happen at my lab in Cambridge. It 

makes the sense of urgency palpable.” 

The next pages offer a look at the work of the members 

of Dana-Farber’s Chemical Biology Initiative. 


“The beauty of small molecules, from the standpoint of cancer, is that 

they allow us to alter the natural history of the disease process.” 

— Greg Verdine, PhD 

Biochemical braces 

Within every cell in 

the body, there is a 

contest for that cell’s 

future. Specialized 

proteins order it to 

die, while others 

instruct it to continue 

living. The cell’s 

course is dictated by 

the relative strength 

of these commands. 

Greg Verdine 

The vast majority of 

the time, there is a natural balance between the death of 

old cells and the creation of new ones. When the death 

mechanism fails because of a faulty gene, cells may 

persist long past the end of their natural lifespan. The 

resulting clump of cells can form a tumor. 

“In one of the classic models of cancer, cells produce 

an oversupply of survival proteins, which act as a shield 

against other proteins that signal the cell to die,” says 

Loren Walensky, MD, PhD, who joined Dana-Farber as 

its first chemical biologist in 2003. “The challenge is to 

find a way of restarting the death process.” 

Ideally, scientists could do that by disrupting the 

“blockade” that survival proteins exert on the cell’s 

death machinery. But the structural complexity of such 

proteins and their location deep within the cell nucleus 

have made it difficult to design drugs with that ability. 

Walensky and his colleagues knew that a protein 

called BID has a short, coiled segment – a helical peptide 

– that is capable of triggering the natural cell-death 

process, called apoptosis. When the peptide is produced 

in the laboratory, artificially disconnected from the 

entire protein, it loses its helical shape, which prevents 

it from entering cells to deliver its “die” message. 

With Verdine and Stanley J. Korsmeyer, MD, the 

late chairman of Dana-Farber’s Executive Committee 

for Research, Walensky constructed 

a tiny “staple” 

from synthetic amino 

acids (the building 

blocks of proteins) to 

Loren Walensky 

helped build a tiny 

“staple” to reinforce a 

compound involved in 

cancer cell death. The 

computerized image 

below shows the 

unstapled (left) and 

stapled compound. 

Illustration by Nicole Bedard 


“It’s surprising how little we know about cell division, considering that 

it’s one of the most basic biological processes.” — Ulrike Eggert, PhD 

reinforce the natural peptide. In laboratory tests, the stapled 

peptides entered leukemia cells and activated their 

cell-death program. Even more intriguing, when the 

strengthened peptides were injected into mice with 

human-type leukemia, the disease was suppressed. 

The experiments demonstrated that stapled peptides 

can be used to study how proteins interact within cells, 

and to block interactions that lead to disease. “Stapling 

enables us to generate a brand-new ‘molecular toolbox’ 

for probing and potentially treating the fundamental 

causes of cancer and other diseases,” Walensky remarks. 

Using the stapled peptide, Walensky recently proved 

that BID sets the cell’s death machinery in motion by 

binding to a protein called BAX, vindicating a theory 

first proposed by 

Stanley Korsmeyer. 

The 

finding has 

energized efforts to treat some cancers with molecules able 

to latch onto BAX. 

Stop-motion pictures 

Although it is described in every high school biology 

textbook, the process of cell division – cytokinesis – 

remains in many respects a mystery. In preparation for 

division, cells duplicate and divide their DNA, then form 

a ring at their center. The ring tightens until a new cell 

pinches off from the old one. Many of the details of the 

process, however, are unclear, because it is both very 

complicated and very fast – about 45 minutes from start 

to finish. 

Ulrike Eggert, PhD, who joined Dana-Farber last year 

at the same time as fellow chemical biologist Nathanael 

Gray, PhD, is using small molecules to halt cytokinesis 

at key points, creating freeze-frame pictures of dividing 

cells and revealing how their proteins change each step 

of the way. 

“It’s surprising how little we know about cell division, 

considering that it’s one of the most basic biological 

processes,” says Eggert, whose laboratory is alongside 

Gray’s at Harvard Medical School. “Small molecules can 

bring the process to a stop very quickly. Within a few 

seconds you can see them working.” 

As a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School 

and now as a Dana-Farber faculty member, Eggert has 

built a library of such cytokinesis-stoppers. She began by 

screening 50,000 candidate compounds, found 50 that 

had the desired effect, and chose the 25 most promising 

ones to study. The small molecules freeze the division 

Ulrike Eggert uses small molecules to trace 

the sequence of cell division, shown in the 

image below. 

18

process at different stages by binding to different 

cell proteins. 

The challenge now is to identify each of these target 

proteins within the cell. Eggert first used a technique 

called RNA interference, which stifles the production of 

specific proteins, to screen for proteins that play a role 

in cell division. She then treated cells with small molecules 

and compared the results of the two approaches. 

If small molecules and RNA interference produced a 

similar effect, it suggested that the same proteins were 

involved. Eggert is currently studying four small molecules 

known to inhibit cell division and plans to use 

them to understand how division takes place and how it 

goes out of control in many cancers. 

“If we can show that one of these molecules blocks a 

specific protein in the pathway,” Eggert explains, “that 

protein would be a natural target for drug therapy.” 

Wedge site story 

For Nathanael Gray, chemical biology offers a way 

to discover whether genes thought to be involved 

in cancer actually play that role and, if so, how they 

can be stopped. He focuses on a class of proteins known 

as kinases, which spark interactions between other 

proteins and are abnormally abundant in many types 

of cancer cells. 

Kinases work by allowing a chemical tag called a 

phosphate group to be transferred from one protein to 

another. Each type of kinase – there are more than 500 

in the human body – is responsible for transferring 

phosphates to a specific target protein. Many kinases 

work in a series and form a molecular signaling network 

that controls a cell’s fate. 

To restrain a kinase, scientists would like to use a biochemical 

“wedge,” a small molecule that attaches easily 

to the kinase’s binding site, a tiny pocket on its surface. 

That would bar the kinase from transferring phosphates 

to target proteins. Gray and his colleagues are working 

out the contours and dimensions of binding sites on a 

specific class of kinases and then testing small molecules 

whose size and shape is a close match. It’s as 

though the prince in the fairy tale “Cinderella” identified 

the owner of Cinderella’s glass slipper by measuring 

the slipper’s proportions and finding the 

maiden whose foot corresponded to them. 

“Chemical biology involves more than knowing 

that protein A interacts with protein B,” Gray says. “We 

want to know the exact positions of all the atoms in the 

protein interaction site. Armed with this knowledge, we 

can design and test compounds that have the potential to 

be specific inhibitors and that may become the starting 

point for future drugs.” 

Having a set of such molecules will enable researchers 

to selectively stifle whichever kinase, or group of kinases, 

they choose, to determine if they contribute to 

cancer. The “cancer kinases” could then be the target of 

small molecule-based therapies. 

“We’ve needed a way to dig deeper into the interactions 

between cell proteins,” Gray observes. “Chemical 

biology lets us explore them at the 

most basic level.” 

Nathanael Gray 

focuses on identifying 

and blocking genes 

involved in cancer. 

19

Discoveries 

Estrogen may offer key to new therapies for colon cancer 

News that estrogen supplements may raise the risk 

of heart disease and breast cancer has prompted 

many postmenopausal women to stop taking 

them. But the estrogen story is not entirely one-sided. 

Researchers at Dana-Farber have found that the hormone 

may hold important clues for the development of new 

therapies for colorectal cancer. 

Drawing on data from a long-running study of 

women’s health, the investigators found that postmenopausal 

women with colon cancer lived longer and 

were less likely to die of the disease if they had been 

taking estrogen supplements within five years of their 

diagnosis. The findings do not mean that estrogen 

should be viewed as a treatment or preventive therapy 

for colon cancer, but they do offer new insights into the 

cancer process, say the study authors, led by Jennifer 

Chan, MD, MPH, and Charles Fuchs, MD, MPH. 

“This work provides a rationale to further study the 

basic mechanism by which estrogen influences the 

development and progression of colon cancer,” says 

Chan. “By understanding how estrogen offers potentially 

beneficial effects in some types of cells, yet deleterious 

Research by Jennifer Chan and colleagues drew on 

data from more than 800 postmenopausal women. 

effects in others, it may be possible to design therapies 

that are effective against colon cancer without posing a 

significant risk of other health problems.” 

Study maps new route to making cells cancer-resistant 

Jean Zhao and Tom Roberts are probing the 

P13K cell-signaling pathway. 

It’s a cliché that a chain is no better than its weakest 

link, but in cancer biology, finding and removing that 

link can hinder a cell’s ability to become cancerous. 

Proof of that principle came from a recent study in 

which Dana-Farber investigators identified such a target 

in a cell-signaling pathway known as P13K, which often 

misfires in breast, colon, and other cancers. When the 

researchers disabled this target – a form of a protein called 

p110-alpha – in mouse cells, the cells became resistant to 

factors that normally would make them cancerous. 

“When you remove this subunit from the P13K pathway, 

genes associated with cancer quit working, key cell receptors 

shut down, and almost nothing can transform these 

cells into cancer cells,” says Tom Roberts, PhD, who led 

the study with colleague Jean Zhao, PhD. The findings 

have drawn new attention to p110-alpha, because they 

suggest that cancer therapies could be improved by 

blocking this molecule. 


Discoveries 

Research reveals new breast cancer susceptibility gene 

Afew years ago, the existence of a gene now 

known as PALB2 was only hypothetical, not 

proven. Recently, Dana-Farber scientists and 

colleagues in Finland not only confirmed that PALB2 is 

real, but also found it heightens women’s risk of breast 

cancer when inherited in a mutated form. It may also 

raise the risk of prostate cancer in men. 

About 10 percent of all breast cancers result from 

inherited gene mutations, though the two best-known 

cancer-susceptibility genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, 

account for only 20-30 percent of such inherited 

cancers, suggesting there are more such genes still 

to be discovered. 

Researchers led by Dana-Farber’s David Livingston, 

MD, and Bing Xia, PhD, determined that the PALB2 

protein enables the BRCA2 protein to repair damaged 

cell DNA. However, if PALB2 is defective, DNA repair 

can be hindered, increasing the chances that a cell will 

become cancerous. 

Finnish researchers working with the Dana-Farber 

scientists screened tissues from breast cancer patients 

in Finland and found that about 1 percent had the same 

mutation in PALB2. A screening of other types of 

David Livingston (left) and Bing Xia collaborated 

with scientists in Boston, Finland, and Sweden. 

cancers indicated the mutation may play a role in some 

prostate cancers as well. 

“The screening suggests that carrying the mutation 

increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer approximately 

fourfold,” Xia said. “Our finding may improve the 

ability to identify some women at elevated risk for the 

disease and potentially lead to new prevention and 

treatment strategies.” 

Far-running mice may hold clues to human disease 

A magnified slice of mouse muscle showing fibers. 

The development of “marathon mice” by Dana- 

Farber researchers may one day benefit people 

with neuromuscular disorders and muscle wasting. 

Investigators led by the Institute’s Bruce Spiegelman, 

PhD, and Zoltan Arany, MD, PhD, used a genetic 

switch known as PGC-1 beta to change the type of skeletal 

muscle fibers in a group of laboratory mice. The 

altered mice had such muscular endurance that they ran 

on a treadmill 25 percent longer than normal mice before 

becoming exhausted. Had they been on a track, they 

would have covered nearly a half-mile before becoming 

fatigued, compared to less than one-third of a mile for 

normal mice. 

“We are working very hard on screening drugs that 

might benefit people with diseases like muscular dystrophy 

and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s 

disease),” says Spiegelman. 


Discoveries 

Study reveals need for more safety standards for prescribing 

chemotherapy drugs taken by pill 

Agrowing number of cancer medications are 

available in pill form, but the prescription 

safeguards so prevalent in infusion chemotherapy 

have yet to be implemented as thoroughly in oral 

chemo drugs, according to a recent study led by Dana- 

Farber researchers. 

A survey by the investigators found that few National 

Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers 

had standardized prescribing practices for oral 

chemotherapy, that is, medications taken by pill rather 

than intravenously. The survey revealed significant differences 

among the centers in the way prescriptions 

were generated and in the amount of information needed 

to complete drug-order forms. 

Nearly 70 percent of the centers used handwritten 

orders for most oral chemotherapy; a minority used 

computer-based order entry systems or preprinted 

paper prescriptions. 

“Given how quickly oral chemotherapies have become 

standard care for a growing number of cancers, we were 

not surprised to find variations in how organizations 

prescribe and monitor their use,” says Saul N. Weingart, 

MD, PhD, vice president for patient safety at Dana- 

Farber and a leader of the study. “It was surprising, 

however, that few of the safeguards used with infusion 

chemotherapy are applied to oral chemotherapy.” 

Co-author Lawrence Shulman, MD, chief medical 

officer at Dana-Farber, added: “These findings underline 

the importance of forging a consensus in the oncology 

field on standardized safeguards and practices for prescribing 

and monitoring the use of these drugs.” 

Grief unfolds in stages for many, with yearning high 

Arecent study by Dana-Farber researchers and 

colleagues confirmed, in part, the commonly 

accepted stages of grief – disbelief, yearning, 

anger, depression, and acceptance – and the sequence in 

which these emotions normally occur. 

While describing how individuals, most of whom were 

widowed, mid-to-later-life adults, tend to adjust to a 

loved one’s death from “natural” causes such as cancer 

or heart disease, the study challenged existing clinical 

guidelines by showing that yearning – not depression – 

was the most common negative feeling among survivors. 

Acceptance was also high among them. 

“Up to now, people thought sadness was the most 

characteristic feature of bereavement, but these data 

show it is more about yearning and pining for and missing 

the person – a hunger for having him or her come 

back,” says senior author Holly Prigerson, PhD, director 

of Dana-Farber’s Center for Psycho-Oncology and 

Palliative Care Research. 

Forewarning about a pending death may help people 

cope emotionally, the investigators also found. “When 

patients and families knew about the terminal diagnosis 

ahead of time, specifically six months or longer,” Prigerson 

says, “they were better prepared for the death and had 

more acceptance and less disbelief afterwards.” 

The project involved interviews with 233 individuals in 

Connecticut who were mourning a loved one’s “natural” 

death; each participant was interviewed three times over 

two years. Study team members also included Susan 

Block, MD, of Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s 

Cancer Center; Baohui Zhang of Dana-Farber; and Paul 

Maciejewski, PhD, of Yale University School of Medicine. 


Discoveries 

Patient stories in book reveal cancer treatment ‘revolution’ 

Since the mid-1950s, when he witnessed some of 

the first patient experiments using combination 

chemotherapy, David G. Nathan, MD, has played 

a pivotal role in the dramatic history of cancer care 

and research. 

Now, Nathan – an acclaimed pediatric hematologist 

who served as Dana-Farber’s president from 1995 to 2000 

and has long been affiliated with Children’s Hospital 

Boston – recounts that history’s triumphs and struggles in 

a book called The Cancer Treatment Revolution: How 

Smart Drugs and Other New Therapies Are Renewing 

Our Hope and Changing the Face of Medicine. 

Published in March by John Wiley & Sons, the work 

recounts the stories of three patients with invasive cancers 

treated at Dana-Farber and its partners in care: Mario, a 

19-month-old boy diagnosed with leukemia; Joan, a 62- 

year-old woman facing metastatic breast cancer; and Ken, 

a 48-year-old who endured multiple clinical trials for 

gastrointestinal stromal tumor before his death in 2005. 

The pages are peppered with the insights of current and 

former Dana-Farber physicians, researchers, and other 

staff members. 

Nathan weaves the patients’ tales with the science 

behind them: how cancer behaves, how it is treated, and 

how the disease sometimes outsmarts the clinical investigators 

seeking to defeat it with “smart” drugs that attack 

specific proteins on which malignant cells thrive. His 

vivid prose brings the science to life: “Like the crab from 

which it gets its name, invasive cancer moves its claws in 

all directions, pushing abnormal cells into normal tissue 

and destroying normal organs in the process.” 

A longtime advocate for clinical research, Nathan spotlights 

the dedication of medical teams and the fortitude 

of patients and families – while calling for ongoing collaboration 

among oncologists, scientists, pharmaceutical 

companies, private foundations, and the government to 

continue the search for new and less toxic remedies. 

In one of the early chapters, Nathan depicts the first 

encounter between Mario, his mother, Flavia, and Scott 

Armstrong, MD, PhD, now a faculty member at Dana- 

Farber and Children’s Hospital. They were in the emergency 

room of Children’s, where Flavia and her husband, 

Walter, had rushed their toddler after a troubling blood 

test that indicated leukemia – though they didn’t yet know 

which type. The boy was being transferred to intensive 

care while Walter 

went home to learn 

whatever he could 

about his son’s 

dreaded disease: 

“Flavia stayed 

with Mario and the 

medical entourage. 

Out of the crowd 

of doctors stepped 

Scott Armstrong, a 

first-year fellow in 

oncology. She 

remembers their 

David G. Nathan 

first meeting in precise 

detail. Flavia felt as though she had been drifting in 

a turbulent sea, drowning in the unexpected wreck of her 

life. Suddenly a life ring was flung to her from the fog. 

Holding the rope was Scott. In his inexperience, Scott had 

no idea of the importance of that moment, but he saved 

Flavia from profound depression. ... 

“Scott knew he had to be careful in his initial conversations 

with Flavia. She was alone, exhausted, and 

extremely vulnerable. Whatever he told her would have 

to be backed with solid evidence and not conjecture. She 

immediately pressed him: ‘Is this the good leukemia’ His 

answer was that he could not be certain until other laboratory 

tests were concluded, but in any case, the immediate 

risk was not the type of leukemia but the very high 

white blood cell count. ... 

“Scott mobilized the specialized staff, and the exchange 

procedure [to replace the child’s diseased blood] started 

at once. Leaving Mario in the competent hands of the 

intensive care people, Scott called Lewis Silverman, a 

staff physician at Children’s Hospital and the Dana- 

Farber Cancer Institute and an assistant professor at 

Harvard Medical School, to go over the next steps in 

what would turn out to be a [successful] two-year effort 

to save Mario.” 

Excerpted from The Cancer Treatment Revolution: 

How Smart Drugs and Other New Therapies Are 

Renewing Our Hope and Changing the Face of Medicine 

(© 2007), by David G. Nathan, MD. Reprinted with permission 

from John Wiley & Sons. 


SPECIAL BONDS 

PEDIATRIC PATIENTS, CAREGIVERS 

SHARE UNIQUE RELATIONSHIPS 

By Saul Wisnia 

The “no smoking” tie her doctor 

wore. The way he always 

made her feel safe in an 

environment filled with shots, blood 

tests, and other scary stuff. The college 

campuses her family drove by 

as they approached Dana-Farber, 

and her declaring, “I’m going to go 

there when I grow up,” at a time 

when her parents didn’t even know 

if she would grow up. 

These are the earliest memories 

Eileen Degregorio has of her cancer 

treatment. Just 2 years old when 

diagnosed with acute lymphocytic 

leukemia (ALL) in March 1989, she 

underwent aggressive chemotherapy, 

both then and after a relapse 

when she was 6. She had a bone 

marrow transplant and has since 

received follow-up care through 

annual visits to Dana-Farber’s 

Jimmy Fund Clinic. 

Eileen and her family’s challenges 

and concerns have changed over 

time, as has her role in monitoring 

her health as a young adult. But one 

thing has remained constant: her 

core caregivers. For nearly 20 years, 

David E. Fisher, MD, PhD, and 

Robin Griffey, RN, BSN, have been 

her primary oncologist and nurse 

at Dana-Farber. 

Theirs is a not an uncommon 

arrangement. With more pediatric 

cancer patients than ever recovering 

from their diseases, unique bonds 

are forming between these nowadult 

survivors and their caregivers. 

And as physicians and researchers 

here and at affiliated hospitals learn 

more about secondary cancers and 

other potential health problems 

resulting from childhood cancers 

and their treatment, they can both 

provide stronger follow-up care 

and see “their kids” reach milestones 

like graduations, marriages, 

and parenthood. 

“When I started here in 1981, 

many families still saw pediatric 

cancer as a death sentence,” says 

Holcombe Grier, MD, associate 

chief of Pediatric Clinical Oncology 

at Dana-Farber and its pediatric 

partner, Children’s Hospital Boston. 

“Now people are worrying not only 

about whether their sons and daughters 

will be cured, but also how they 

will continue to live as survivors. 

We’re able to change our mindset 

from talking about cures to talking 

about late effects like secondary 

cancers, and how to monitor them 

over time.” 

Photographs and memories 

Bulletin boards crammed with 

photos in many physician offices 

affirm the close ties that pediatric 


As Eileen Degregorio has gone from 

preschool cancer patient to adult survivor, 

her oncologist David E. Fisher 

has “always been there for me.” 

doctors and their young patients 

build. Children of various ages grin 

in school pictures and action shots 

on ski slopes and Halloween routes, 

and caregivers often gain a sort of 

parental pride as youngsters continue 

growing. Although many children 

with ALL and other cancers 

are diagnosed as preschoolers or 

infants, the “well” visits continue 

long after their treatment ends – 

gradually moving from monthly 

to bi-monthly to twice and then 

once a year. 

“From the time I was about 10, 

every time I came in, Dr. Billett 

would introduce me to a new doctor 

and say, ‘This is the kid who was 

born with leukemia, and look how 

she’s doing,’” recalls Nakia Neff, 

now 19, of her visits with Amy 

Billett, MD, her primary caregiver 

for ALL since she was three weeks 

old. “They would all say how wonderful 

it was, and it made me feel 

great to be alive.” 

For Degregorio, time with Fisher 

was similarly reassuring. She 

remembers him asking her to draw 

a picture of her red and white blood 

cells – then praising her work as 

“just right.” When she was isolated 

in a sterilized hospital room after 

her transplant, she promised him 

she’d “set the record” for the quickest 

recovery. She did, getting out in 

just 13 days. 

“Usually when the doctor comes 

in a room, that’s when you panic, 

but I was always happy to see him,” 

she says. “Dr. Fisher took time to 

explain procedures to me before 

talking with my parents. He gave 

me strength.” 

Neither Neff nor Degregorio can 

remember her earliest visit to Dana- 

Farber, but Uri Berenguer-Ramos 


will never forget his. When he was 3, 

the Panama native saw his first snow 

when he and his mother, Daisy, came 

to Boston and Dana-Farber in November 

1985. Uri had a rare blood 

disease known as histocytosis, and 

doctors back home had said he 

needed a right leg amputation due 

to a tumor. Daisy insisted on a second 

opinion, even if it meant flying 

to a city where she didn’t know any 

Uri Berenguer-Ramos (left) and Lindsay Frazier built a powerful connection 

during Uri’s long years of treatment; today they celebrate his good 

health and blossoming media career. 

people or the language. 

“That first day, after a Latino 

security guard helped us get settled 

in, I met Dr. Lindsay Frazier,” 

recalls Uri Berenguer-Ramos. “She 

was a warm, caring person, and 

helped me through those first terrifying 

days. She also helped save my 

leg, and over time, she became like 

my second mother.” 

Frazier, then a first-year hematology-oncology 

fellow at DFCI, 

recalls how Uri “appeared out of 

nowhere on our doorstep, radiating 

charisma even at age 3. He’s the 

kind of kid who, when he came into 

our world, it felt like somebody had 

turned on the lights – the Christmas 

lights.” Her young patient was also 

an excellent “bridge” to conversations 

with his mother, as he picked 

up English very quickly. Over the 

16 years of Uri’s treatment that followed, 

the three grew very close. 

Treating mom and dad 

In addition to forming strong 

bonds with young patients, caregivers 

develop distinctive ties with their 

parents. Joan Degregorio, Eileen’s 

mother, feels that Fisher, Griffey, and 

pediatric psychologist Nancy Frumer- 

Styron, PsyD, are a sort of “Dana- 

Farber trinity” that has watched over 

her family. “They didn’t just treat 

Eileen, they treated all of us,” Joan 

Degregorio says. “Dr. Fisher would 

tell you I’m the woman with a million 

questions, but they always 

answered every one.” 

Dad Anthony Degregorio agrees: 

“There is a comfort level you can’t 

describe – both for the continuity of 

services and the quality of care. 

When Eileen was first sick and we 

had to go back and forth to the emergency 

room, we had to memorize 

certain dates because we’d always 

be getting different doctors. At Dana- 

Farber, they knew everything; Dr. 

Fisher was reading his own notes, 

not dissecting someone else’s.” 

Eileen and John Sullivan’s son 

John Timothy was diagnosed with 

acute myelogenous leukemia (or 

AML) at age three weeks, forcing 

the family to begin a crazy schedule 

in which John would sleep nightly in 


Uri Berenguer-Ramos was “the kind of kid who, when he came into 

our world, it felt like somebody had turned on the lights – the 

Christmas lights.” — Lindsay Frazier, MD 

their son’s room at Children’s 

Hospital Boston, while Eileen shuttled 

their two young daughters to 

relatives’ homes and spent her days 

by John Timothy’s bedside after 

dad went to work. There were many 

days the couple would literally pass 

each other in the hallway, and it was 

Billett who insisted they escape the 

hospital once a week for dinner. 

“Dr. Billett made us feel that she 

had our best interest at heart, and I 

came to count on her more and 

more,” says Eileen Sullivan. This 

closeness proved crucial when 

John Timothy needed a bone marrow 

transplant and his 4-year-old 

sister, Ciara, was a perfect match. 

“He had only a 40 percent chance 

for a successful transplant, and I 

don’t know what I would have 

done without Dr. Billett’s support. 

One by one, all of the other families 

we were friendly with at the 

hospital lost their kids, and sometimes 

it felt like we were in this 

alone with Dr. Billett. But she 

always gave us hope.” 

John Timothy recovered, and 

shortly thereafter Eileen became 

pregnant with her fourth child – just 

as Billett was conceiving her first. 

“We wound up having babies at the 

same time, and evolved into friends. 

After that, whenever I went in for 

appointments with John Timothy, he 

would have to sit there while Amy 

and I caught up. He’d stare at me 

with a look like, ‘Wrap it up, wrap 

it up,’ and I’d just laugh.” 

While invaluable to families, 

such closeness can make a physician’s 

job harder. “When you’re 

trying to make very difficult decisions 

about what to do next in 

treatment, especially if things are 

not going well, you need to make 

sure that you’re not so close with a 

family that your emotional involvement 

impedes your ability to make 

the best medical choices,” says 

Billett. “You need to weigh all the 

factors.” Even in those cases when 

a young patient does not survive, 

caregivers often continue their 

support by attending funerals and 

serving as a comforting presence 

to families. 

Growing up, staying close 

Vastly improving pediatric cancer 

outcomes have made bad outcomes 

far less common. The most common 

form of pediatric cancer, ALL, 

carried less than a 5 percent longterm 

survival rate in the 1960s 

and ’70s. Even into the mid-1980s, 

30-40 percent of children diagnosed 

with this leukemia didn’t make it 

far into adulthood, but today the 

Just three weeks old when Amy Billett (left) became her doctor, Nakia 

Neff can now talk with her “like she’s one of my girlfriends.” 


“From the time I was about 10, every time I came in, Dr. Billett would 

introduce me to a new doctor and say, ‘This is the kid who was born 

with leukemia, and look how she’s doing.’” — Nakia Neff 

disease boasts an 80-90 percent cure 

rate. Other pediatric cancers such as 

Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Ewing’s sarcoma, 

and Burkitt’s lymphoma have 

also seen strong gains, thanks to 

improved regimens based partly on 

the experiences of children treated 

in the past. 

With extended survivorship, however, 

comes the potential for other 

health concerns down the road. 

Although Dana-Farber’s youngest 

patients maintain their primary 

oncologist after their treatment ends, 

this doctor can help lead them to 

other appropriate caregivers at DFCI 

and elsewhere. 

“It used to be that patients who 

came in after treatment were just 

screened to make sure the cancer was 

still gone, but now we approach survivorship 

differently,” says Lisa 

Diller, MD, clinical director of 

Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber 

and Children’s Hospital Boston. 

Diller is founder and medical director 

of DFCI’s David B. Perini, Jr. Quality 

of Life Clinic, which focuses its 

research, patient care, and advocacy 

work on late effects such as secondary 

cancers, heart or fertility problems, 

and learning disabilities. 

“Today we can develop survivorship 

programs geared to each 

patient,” Diller explains. “Patients in 

the Perini Clinic can see a genetic 

counselor, a fertility expert, a mental 

health professional, and other specialists 

whose focus is the care of 

survivors. We can also link patients 

to the right adult caregivers at 

Brigham and Women’s Hospital or 

other institutions if they develop 

secondary conditions like hypertension 

or coronary heart disease.” 

Even patients who develop cancers 

at the cusp of adulthood can benefit 

from this arrangement. Michael 

Doto, now in his mid-40s, was diagnosed 

with Hodgkin’s disease at 

age 16 and began seeing Holcombe 

Grier a few years later. “Twelve years 

ago, I had bacterial meningitis and 

almost died, and Dr. Grier’s was the 

first face I saw when I woke. More 

recently, I developed a carcinoma in 

my ear and coronary artery disease 

as a result of my past radiation treatment, 

and in both cases he was great 

at helping me find the best specialists 

and make surgical decisions.” 

Getting on with life 

Another milestone occurs when 

patients grow old enough to check 

in with their doctors unaccompanied 

by a parent or adult. This rite of 

passage happens at different ages 

for each child, usually in the early 

teens, and can be exhilarating for all 

involved (although also tough for 

parents). Concerns can be discussed 

openly, like sex or fears about getting 

hurt playing sports. 

On one of his visits with Grier and 

his other longtime caregivers, Doto 

put together a collage of photos of 

his own two children and presented 

it to them with the comment, “You 

made this happen.” Doctors and 

nurses get their fair share of graduation 

and wedding invitations as well, 

and Degregorio asked Fisher to her 

high school graduation and five-year 

remission party. 

The best times, of course, are 

when patients get well and get on 

with their lives. Billett was attending 

a dance performance last December 

when she noticed a familiar face on 

stage. It was Neff, fully recovered and 

pursuing a performance career. John 

Timothy Sullivan also got better and 

is now in college at Massachusetts 

Maritime Academy; Doto is a 

senior vice president of operations 

at Citigroup. 

During baseball season, Frazier 

can turn on her radio and brush up 

on her Español by listening to Uri 

Berenguer-Ramos’ passionate broadcasts 

of the Boston Red Sox. Now 

cancer-free, Uri is the team’s leading 

Spanish radio broadcaster, and 

because of the close relationship 

between the Sox and Dana-Farber’s 

Jimmy Fund – one of the baseball 

club’s official charities – he has 

become a celebrity and inspiration 

to many other young patients. Like 

Doto, who volunteers at several DFCI 

events each year including the Jimmy 

Fund Clinic holiday party (where 

Grier plays Santa), Berenguer-Ramos 

also gives time to the Institute as a 

guest speaker. 

Then there is Eileen Degregorio, 

who is fulfilling her childhood promise 

by attending Wheelock College just 

down the road from Dana-Farber. 

Studying to be an elementary school 

teacher, she spent last summer as a 

counselor at Camp Sunshine, where 

children with cancer can get away 

from hospitals and checkups. A 

former camper there herself, she 

wants to help make kids feel happy 

and safe, just as Fisher and her other 

caregivers did for her. 


First Person: Evie Goldfine 

A cancer survivor’s blog Edited by Christine Cleary 

Having a spouse die young from a brain tumor, raising two teenagers alone, enduring three bouts of lymphoma 

and a stem cell transplant, and losing a mother to lung cancer in just over 11 years would derail many 

people. Yet the spirited Evie Goldfine, 59, claims she has lived a charmed life, anchored by the love and 

support of family and friends. 

During her time as a Dana-Farber patient, Goldfine kept a lively Web log (blog) peppered with humor, pathos, and 

wisdom, and brimming with love for her family. In addition to allowing others to keep up with her progress, the site 

kept Evie from having to repeat her story to everyone who called. She was able to talk about, and think about, other 

things besides her cancer. 

A former technology executive and entrepreneur, Goldfine recalls, “When I got sick five years after my husband, 

Alan, died, I knew I could not leave my children. I’d say to my doctors, ‘Look, I can’t afford to die. My kids need me.’ 

“I’m a pragmatic person,” she adds. “When I see a problem, I try to fix it. I’m not one to sit around saying,‘woe is 

me.’ I have always lived in the moment, so having cancer was no different.” 

In one entry, Evie’s daughter, Sarah, aptly compares this period of her family’s life with a track and field event 

called the steeplechase, a 3,000-meter race in which runners must jump over several barriers and a pit of water. 

Similarly, Evie had to clear several hurdles in addition to her cancer, such as life-threatening problems with the 

catheter implanted in her chest to administer drugs, a time when she thought Sarah also had lymphoma, and a 

near-death experience on the highway. Every time the reader breathes a sigh of relief, a new challenge appears. 

Her most recent obstacle was a stem cell transplant at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center to 

replace her bone marrow with healthy new cells from a donor, driving her 

lymphoma into remission. With help from the Gift of Life, an organization that 

facilitates stem cell donations among the Jewish population (for whom matches 

are hard to find because of specific blood typing), Yisrael Meir Goldman, 23, 

was identified as a donor. 

When Goldfine met Goldman during a Gift of Life gathering a year later, she 

told the group, “It’s the ordinary things that are now extraordinary to me, and 

I owe this to my donor.” She gave the Israeli man her mother’s mezuzah, a 

symbol of Jewish faith, to thank him for saving her life. 

Here are some excerpts from Goldfine’s blog: 

8/1/00: Health update 

I don’t mean to be obnoxious by 

sending out a mass e-mail, but it 

seems easier. Then, when we speak I 

don’t have to go through the story. 

We can talk about the future – yours 

and mine. 

Today I met with the pathologist 

and he could not definitively say I 

have lymphoma, but he couldn’t say 

I don’t have it, either. So I took the 

slides and report to Dana-Farber. 

They will do their own pathology on 

the tissues, Thursday I will have CT 

scans, and Friday I will have blood 

tests and meet the oncologist. 

I really appreciate your support, 

love, words of encouragement, 

and extraordinary contacts. I was 

impressed with how quickly we could 

zero in on experts in the world of 

lymphoma. [Editor’s note: A definitive 

diagnosis could not be made yet.] 

12/25/00: Medical update 

The bottom line is, I have been diagnosed 

with aggressive lymphoma. 

Evie Goldfine’s optimism shines 

through the blog she kept during her 

six years as a lymphoma patient. 


Already a devoted family, the Goldfines drew closer during Evie’s cancer experience. Pictured here (left to 

right) are Jason Rickles (Sarah’s fiancé), Sarah, Evie, Emma, Amy, Josh, and baby Jake. 

I have as much energy as ever – which 

means I can still run circles around 

20-year-olds. 

I have no time for second opinions 

on treatment. My oncologist [Arnie 

Freedman, MD] literally wrote the 

chapter on lymphoma in the textbooks, 

and I trust his judgment. 

The treatment consists of six 21-day 

cycles, where I get drugs intravenously 

on day one and then take drugs for the 

next four days. I will lose my hair, they 

should be able to control the nausea, 

I will feel tired (so now I’ll have the 

energy of a 40-year-old), I am susceptible 

to mouth sores and diarrhea, and 

I will have a much lower blood count – 

which means don’t visit me if you’ve 

been exposed to anyone who has 

been sick. 

The upside is, I pick up half an hour 

a day because I don’t have to wash and 

dry my hair, I save a ton of money on 

hair maintenance, I should lose some 

weight, I will get a lot of sympathy, 

AND I’ll find out a lot about myself 

and the people around me. 

The most difficult part is that [my 

kids] Josh and Sarah are terrified. This 

is my worst nightmare coming true. 

I am doing everything I can to help 

them with their fears, but I can’t promise 

that it will all turn out all right. 

12/30/00: Emergency update 

I am shaking. The doctor just called 

and said that I have an even more 

aggressive lymphoma than they originally 

thought. I will be hospitalized 

starting tomorrow. If this very aggressive 

treatment doesn’t work, my 

chances of survival are slim. 

How could this possibly be happening 

to me I still feel perfectly fine. 

Please surround my children with all 

the support and love they deserve. 

1/24/01: Update from Evie 

Everyone keeps asking me how 

Josh (and Amy) and Sarah are doing, 

so I thought I’d bring you up-to-date, 

trying not to embarrass them. Sarah 

went back to school, taking three 

courses, which gives her the ability to 

come home every other week. She 

is also training for a triathlon, May 

5th in California. I plan to be there, 

cheering her on. 

I don’t know what I would do 

without Josh and Amy. They visit 

me every day, and Josh has been 

sorting my mail and paying my 

bills. NO EASY FEAT, I can tell 

you. I probably get more mail than 

an average business. 

3/30/01: It just doesn’t get any 

better than today 

My bone marrow is cancer-free. 

My CT scan was clear and 

cancer-free. 

My gallium scan showed no signs 

of cancer, either. 

With me today at the hospital 

were Josh, Sarah, Amy, my nurse, 

and our family therapist (who has 

helped me and the children since 

Alan’s illness and death in 1994). 

My doctor told us about the test 

results, and I can’t describe the joy 

and elation in that room. Sarah 


“I've been so consumed by world events this week that I almost forget 

how grave my own situation is.” — Sept. 16, 2001 

said, “It’s time to plan Josh and 

Amy’s wedding.” 

Life begins again for this family. 

I hate to be corny, but one of my 

favorite movie lines is, “Life is like 

a box of chocolates, you never 

know what you’re going to get.” 

I got the best chocolate in the 

box today. 

4/2/01: I have a blood clot 

In the main vein to my heart. I was 

in the hospital for seven hours and 

am completely wiped out. I get anticoagulation 

shots a couple of times a 

day and I will have surgery on 

Thursday or Friday to remove the 

port-a-cath [an implanted device for 

delivering medication]. Needless to 

say, a blood clot in the main vein to 

your heart is not exactly comforting. 

6/29/01: Sarah is ill 

Sarah has not been feeling well 

for the last six weeks. She has 

swollen lymph nodes and has been 

feeling run down and achy. She had 

a full round of blood tests and has 

an elevated LDH count [LDH is an 

enzyme associated with tissue damage]. 

There are lots of viruses that 

could cause this, but it is also a 

symptom of lymphoma. The notion 

that she could be seriously sick 

is beyond my scope of thinking. 

We are all “maxed-out” on our 

coping skills. 

Editor’s note: July 2001, Sarah 

does not have lymphoma. 

8/17/01: Bad news 

I felt a lump in my neck 

Wednesday night. I am having a 

biopsy first thing in the morning. 

It will take until the middle of next 

week to get the results. Josh and 

Amy are getting married in two 

weeks, and I would not want to 

have any other procedures done 

until after the wedding. I think the 

cancer has returned. 

8/22/01: It could be worse 

My slides look exactly like the 

slides of the biopsy last July. The 

oncologist feels that my highly 

aggressive lymphoma has been 

cured, although there are no assur- 

ances. However, it appears that a 

low-grade lymphoma is still present. 

9/5/01: A few notes 

When I got the news last week 

that the cancer had returned, my 

first concern was that my health 

situation was going to put a huge 

damper on Josh and Amy’s wedding. 

Nothing could have been further 

from the truth. Everything went 

off perfectly. I don’t think anyone 

focused on my medical situation. 

Everyone was partying and celebrating 

with Josh and Amy, which 

is as it should be. 

9/16/01: More bad news 

I am going to be given a drug 

called Zevalin. The drug was 

approved Tuesday morning, 

“This is a celebration of the incredible, selfless deed of one young man 

who was willing to save a complete stranger’s life,” Evie said about her 

stem cell donor, Yisrael Meir Goldman. 


Sept. 11, moments before federal 

buildings were shut down in the 

wake of the terrorist attacks. I take 

this as a good sign. It’s the circle 

of life. 

This is the way cancer is. You feel 

fine and then you don’t. I’ve been so 

consumed by world events this week 

that I almost forget how grave my 

own situation is. 

11/18/01: A word about 

Dana-Farber 

I vividly remember the time I 

was issued my Dana-Farber Cancer 

Institute plastic card. I couldn’t 

believe I had a card that labeled 

me as a cancer patient. Now 

when I walk into the hospital, I 

always have a smile on my face. 

Patients are treated with compassion 

beyond words. 

2/15/02: Great news! 

My CT scans were completely 

clean. 

My white blood count rebounded 

to normal. 

My red and platelet counts are 

normal, although my red count is 

down slightly. 

My LDH count increased and is 

definitely out of the range of normal. 

All in all this is terrific news. My 

doctor is not concerned about the 

LDH count. 

Editor’s note: From 2002 to 2005, 

son Josh Goldfine runs the Boston 

Marathon each April to raise money 

for Dana-Farber. Evie enjoys clean 

scans and good health while tending 

to her own mother, who has lung 

cancer and dies in Dec. 2004. 

4/21/05: I’ve had a recurrence 

Tuesday I went in for a routine 

exam and CT scan. Unfortunately the 

scan showed an enlarged lymph node 

in my abdomen. There is no question 

the cancer has returned; it’s 

only a matter of how aggressive it 

is. I am having surgery on Tuesday 

to remove the node. The results of 

the biopsy will take at least a 

week. If the cancer is aggressive I 

will need a stem cell transplant. I’ll 

be in the hospital for months, in 

isolation. 

5/17/05: Last night I got a call 

From the director of The Gift of 

Life Organization. These people 

are AMAZING. I asked him how 

people react when they are called 

and asked to be a donor. He said 

that they act like they’ve won the 

lottery. Imagine knowing that you 

are saving a life. “He who saves 

one life, it is as if he had saved the 

entire world.” – Talmud 

5/20/05: Except for the cancer, 

my life is charmed 

Going through a stem cell 

transplant is a huge juggling act. 

I have to admit, I’m highly qualified 

for the job. It’s all about dotting 

the “i”s and crossing the “t”s, 

and this is my forte. So, when I go 

through the transplant, I will know 

that I have done everything possible 

to give myself the best shot. 

7/26/05: First day 

This is the first day of the rest of 

my life. That’s the way the transplant 

team thinks of it. 

9/6/05: Truly remarkable test 

results today 

If I were to commit a crime 

and leave traces of blood at the 

scene, the police would never 

think it was me because my 

blood would show an XY chromosome. 

For those of you who 

remember your biology, my 

blood is now male. My blood type 

has changed from A+ to O+. 

However, the rest of my DNA is 

original. So, the DNA of my skin 

is different from my blood. If I 

had allergies, they would be gone 

because the donor doesn’t have 

allergies. Isn’t this all like science 

fiction And no, I’m not growing 

facial hair! 

7/19/06: This cat has a couple 

more lives left 

Restrictions are being lifted one 

by one. I can go to restaurants, shop 

in stores, and be in elevators without 

a mask and gloves. It takes discipline 

to let go of the barriers 

between me and the outside world. 

I’m not fully there yet. I still slip on 

a glove when opening doors, and 

put on a mask and gloves when 

using a public restroom. 

However, when I walked into 

Dana-Farber for my vaccinations, 

the nurse came over and said, 

“Look at you ... you look beautiful 

... no one would ever know what 

you’ve been through. I love your 

curls ... but then again, you handled 

bald very well.” She went on 

and on, reminiscing about how 

concerned I was for my children 

and the burden I placed on them. 

Here I was, with a clean scan, having 

sailed through the transplant, 

and I became very emotional. 

When she started checking the 

numbers on my bracelet to make 

sure the medication belonged to 

me, I broke down and cried. It just 

hit me that Josh, Sarah, and Amy 

were SOOOO sweet. They were 

always there to support me. It’s 

hard to believe that a year has 

gone by and it has been so effortless 

for me. 

It’s the story of my life. It has 

been charmed. 


2006 ANNUAL R EPORT/TREASURER’ S R EPORT AND D ANA-FARBER G OVERNANCE 

A message from Chief Financial Officer Dorothy Puhy 

The past year was a strong one financially for Dana-Farber. The 

Institute reported an excess of revenues over expenses of approximately 

$21.5 million during 2006, an increase from the previous 

year’s excess of $13.3 million. The Institute ended the year with 

investment balances of $511.5 million, up from $462.5 million the 

previous year. Return on the investment portfolio was 9.9 percent, 

essentially the same as the market benchmark. 

The operating results improved from $4.5 million in 2005 to 

$17.7 million in 2006. Operating results benefited from strong revenue 

growth in all areas. Overall revenue grew 14.1 percent from 

2005 to 2006. Revenues from patient care services grew 24.9 percent, 

and research revenues were much better than expected, in 

light of a difficult environment in federal funding. I’m also pleased 

to report that donor funds used to support current activities grew 

substantially over the previous year. Unrestricted fundraising was 

up 18.6 percent, and programmatic support grew 23.3 percent. 

The results we achieved in 2006 were made possible by the work 

of staff throughout the Institute, as well as numerous friends of 

Dana-Farber. We are grateful for this strong and ongoing support. 

Annual Report 2006 / P ATHS OF P ROGRESS 33

D ANA-FARBER C ANCER I NSTITUTE, INC. AND S UBSIDIARIES* 

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS 

For the Fiscal Year Ended Sept. 30 2006 2005 

(Dollars in thousands) 

Assets 

Current Assets 157,794 117,690 

Investments 511,450 462,493 

Property, Plant, and Equipment, net 247,079 235,893 

Contributions Receivable, less current portion 89,646 41,658 

Other Assets 14,041 16,829 

Total Assets $1,020,010 $874,563 

Liabilities and Net Assets 

Current Liabilities 118,584 103,821 

Long-Term Debt and Other Liabilities 144,062 147,209 

Net Assets 

Unrestricted 300,284 269,396 

Temporarily Restricted 341,311 244,478 

Permanently Restricted 115,769 109,659 

Subtotal Net Assets 757,364 623,533 

Total Liabilities and Net Assets $1,020,010 $874,563 

Summary Statistical Information 

(Unless otherwise noted, includes adult and pediatric patients) 

2006 2005 

Infusion Visits 87,784 84,458 

Outpatient MD Visits 106,994 100,342 

Number of Licensed Beds (as of year end) 27 27 

Adult Inpatient Discharges (from BWH) 1,036 949 

Clinical Trials (via Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center) 629 589 

During FY’97, Dana-Farber moved its inpatient beds to partnering Brigham 

and Women’s Hospital as part of a longer-range strategy to emphasize the 

delivery of comprehensive outpatient care within DFCI facilities. 

* Subsidiaries include Dana-Farber, Inc., Dana-Farber Trust, 

and HealthCare Dimensions Hospice. 

34 P ATHS OF P ROGRESS / Annual Report 2006

D ANA-FARBER C ANCER I NSTITUTE, INC. AND S UBSIDIARIES 

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS AND CHANGES IN NET ASSETS 

For the Fiscal Year Ended Sept. 30 2006 2005 

(Dollars in thousands) 

Revenues 

Research 235,912 228,289 

Patient Service, net 304,604 243,772 

Unrestricted Contributions and Bequests 49,980 42,147 

Other Operating 25,642 25,979 

Total Revenues $616,138 $540,187 

Expenses 

Fiscal Year 2006 Income 

Direct Research 203,931 190,937 

Direct Patient Care 192,392 160,309 

Indirect 202,149 184,464 

Total Operating Expenses $598,472 $535,710 

Operating Income 17,666 4,477 

Investment Return, net 3,848 8,871 

Excess of Revenues Over Expenses 21,514 13,348 

Net Unrealized Investment Gains 9,804 10,165 

Other (430) 264 

Increase in Temporarily Restricted Net Assets 96,833 58,272 

Increase in Permanently Restricted Net Assets 6,110 7,004 

Increase (Decrease) in Net Assets 133,831 89,053 

Net Assets at Beginning of Year 623,533 534,480 

Net Assets at End of Year $757,364 $623,533 

The preceding selected consolidated financial data as of Sept. 30, 2006, and 2005 

(except for the summary statistical data) have been derived from the consolidated 

financial statements of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Inc., Dana-Farber, Inc., 

Dana-Farber Trust, and HealthCare Dimensions Hospice. These have been audited 

by Ernst & Young, LLP, independent auditors. 

Fiscal Year 2006 Expenses 

200 

150 

100 

50 

Comparison of 

Private Support 

($ i illi ) 

In FY 2006, the Institute raised $203.4 million in new gifts, pledges, 

{ 

and commitments through its Division of Development and the Jimmy 

Fund, representing an increase of 27 percent over FY 2005 results of 

$160.5 million. For accounting purposes, the financial charts above 

reflect new gifts and pledges calculated at present value and raised 

through the Division of Development and the Jimmy Fund, HealthCare 

Dimensions Hospice, and the Friends of DFCI, excluding commitments 

the Institute could not record due to conditionality. 

0 


D ANA-FARBER C ANCER I NSTITUTE, INC. 

CORPORATE 

OFFICERS 

BOARD COMMITTEES 

AND CHAIRPERSONS 

BOARD DEVELOPMENT 

COMMITTEES AND CHAIRPERSONS 

Gary L. Countryman 

Chairman 


President and 

Chief Executive Officer 

Richard P. Morse 

Vice Chairman 

Vincent M. O’Reilly 

Vice Chairman 

Richard A. Smith 

Vice Chairman 

Richard K. Lubin 

Treasurer 

Dorothy E. Puhy 

Assistant Treasurer 

Neal J. Curtin, Esq. 

Secretary 

Richard S. Boskey, Esq. 

Assistant Secretary 

Kathleen Harkey 


Audit Committee 

Joseph E. Norberg 

Committee on Facility Planning 

and Construction 

John L. Marshall III 

Communications Committee 

Marjorie B. Salmon 

Community Programs Committee 

David Auerbach 

Amy Z. Reiner 

Compensation Committee 


Executive Committee 


Finance Committee 


Governance Committee 


Investment Committee 

Stephen B. Kay 

Joint Committee on 

Quality Improvement 

and Risk Management 

Vincent M. O’Reilly 

Annual Giving 

Program Committee 

James W. Rappaport 

Jean S. Sharf 

Campaign Committee 

Josh Bekenstein 

Larry Lucchino 

Corporations and 

Foundations Committee 

Thomas J. May 

Development Committee 

Charles A. Dana III 

Richard P. Morse 

Gift Planning Committee 

M. Dozier Gardner 

Jimmy Fund Advisory Committee 


James P. Sadowsky 

Medical Staff Appointments Committee 


Trustee Science Committee 

Michael R. Eisenson, Esq. 

Howard Cox 

The governance listings in this annual report are current as of January 1, 2007. 



TRUSTEES 

Andrea R. Abraham 

Gerhard R. Andlinger 

Mara G. Aspinall 3 

Arnold J. Auerbach 2+ 


Joshua Bekenstein 

Baruj Benacerraf, MD 3 

Edward J. Benz Jr., MD 3 

Roger Berkowitz 

Alan J. Bernon 

Armin G. Biller 

John F. Blais 

Betty Ann Blum 

Justice Stephen G. Breyer 2 

Hon. Frederick L. Brown 

J. Gary Burkhead 

Kennett F. Burnes, Esq. 

Stephen J. Burton 

Richard A. Cantor 

Michael A. Champa 

George Cloutier 

Martha Coakley, Esq. 

Marc A. Cohen 

Joseph F. Cotter 2 

Gary L. Countryman 3 

Howard Cox 

Neal J. Curtin, Esq. 3 

Charles A. Dana III 

Lee S. Daniels 

Nader F. Darehshori 

Laura Weissman Davis 

David A. Dechman 

Daniel Dennis 

Peter I. deRoetth 

Emily F. DiMaggio 

Steven Dodge 

James H. Donovan 

James Dow 

John P. Dunfey 

Donald Dwares 

Michael R. Eisenson, Esq. 3 

Edward Eskandarian 

Darwin C. Farber 

Stephen B. Farber 

Thomas A. Farrington 

James L. Fine 

Stephen A. Fine 

Jane E. Fireman 

Robert C. First 

Stephen W. Foss 

Patricia L. Franchi 

Emil Frei III, MD 

Lauren Frei 

Orrie M. Friedman, PhD 2 

Michael Frieze 

M. Dozier Gardner 

Arthur Gelb, ScD 3 

Nancy Q. Gibson 

Charles K. Gifford 

William M. Gillen 

Michael S. Gordon 

Abraham D. Gosman 

James D. Griffin, MD 3 

David V. Harkins 

Marian L. Heard 

Alan J. Hirschfield 

Thomas F. Holt Jr., Esq. 

Barbara H. Hugus, PhD 2 

Jane P. Jamieson 

Glenn M. Johnson 

Hon. Scott L. Kafker 

William S. Karol 

Stephen B. Kay 3 

Phyllis Swerling Kellem 2 

Patricia D. Kelsey 2 

Robert P. Kelsey Jr. 2 

Michele Kessler 

Michael J. Kittredge 

Brian J. Knez 

Ruth Kopelman 2 

Paul B. Kopperl 3 

Stephen P. Koster, Esq. 

Robert K. Kraft 3 

Sandra G. Krakoff 3 

Phyllis Krock 

Judith Hurwitz Krupp 

Reuben Landau, Esq. 2 

Althea Lank 

Charles Larsen III 

Kenneth H. M. Leet 

Richard D. Leggat, Esq. 

Kenneth Levine 

Roger A. Lockwood 

Richard K. Lubin 3 

David G. Lubrano 

Bradley A. Lucas 

Lawrence Lucchino 

Hildegarde E. Mahoney 

Peter A. Maich 

Roger M. Marino 

John L. Marshall III 

Thomas J. May 

William F. McCall Jr. 

Joseph C. McNay 

William F. Meagher 

David S. Moross 

Richard P. Morse 3 

David G. Nathan, MD 

Charles Nirenberg 

Joseph E. Norberg 

Brian O’Connor 

John J. O’Connor 

Vincent M. O’Reilly 3 

Stuart H. Orkin, MD 3 

Edward O. Owens 

Peter Palandjian 

Arthur M. Pappas, MD 2 

Theodore Pasquarello 

Jean F. Pearlstein 3 

David B. Perini 

Eileen Perini 

Steven P. Perlmutter, Esq. 

Susan M. Poduska 

William J. Poutsiaka 3 

Irving W. Rabb 2 

John M. Randolph 2 

Kathleen M. Randolph, PhD 2 

James W. Rappaport 

John P. Reardon Jr. 

Shari E. Redstone 

Sumner M. Redstone 2 

Amy Z. Reiner 

Ann M. Rosenberg 

Harvey Rosenthal 3 

Edward F. Rover 

Robert J. Sachs, Esq. 

Barbara L. Sadowsky 


Stephen E. Sallan, MD 3 

Marjorie B. Salmon 

Malcolm S. Salter 

H. Terrence Samway 

Judith P. Schlager 

Fredric E. Schluter 3 

Richard N. Seaman 

Paul Severino 

Jean S. Sharf 

Lawrence N. Shulman, MD 3 

Paula L. Sidman 

Laurence C. Siegel 

Marc E. Smith 

Richard A. Smith 3 

Susan F. Smith 

Ruth F. Snider 

Jerry M. Socol 

Nancy Socol 

Gloria H. Spivak 

Robert Stansky 

William Starr 

James M. Stoneman 2 

Patrick J. Sullivan 

Stephen B. Swensrud 

Delores Barr Weaver 

J. Wayne Weaver 

Karen L. Webster 

Thomas Werner 

T. Conrad Wetterau 

Donald W. White 

Gregory A. White 

Darnell L. Williams 

Frederica M. Williams 

Carl Yastrzemski 2 

George J. Yost III, Esq. 

Mortimer B. Zuckerman 2 

1 Trustee for Life 

2 Honorary Trustee 

3 Member, Executive Committee 

+ Deceased 




EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT 


President and Chief Executive Officer 


Senior Vice President and General Counsel 

Beverly R. Ginsburg, MBA 

Senior Vice President, Research, DFCI; 

Associate Director, Administration, DF/HCC 

James D. Griffin, MD 

Chair, Medical Oncology 

Jay R. Harris, MD 

Chair, Radiation Oncology 

Philip W. Kantoff, MD 

Chief Clinical Research Officer 

Lee M. Nadler, MD 

Senior Vice President, 

Experimental Medicine 

Stuart H. Orkin, MD 

Chair, Pediatric Oncology 

Susan S. Paresky, MBA 

Senior Vice President, Development and 

The Jimmy Fund 

Patricia Reid Ponte, RN, DNSc, FAAN 

Senior Vice President, Patient Care Services; 

Chief Nurse, Dana-Farber 

Director, Oncology Nursing and Clinical 

Services, Brigham and Women’s Hospital 

Janet E. Porter, PhD 

Executive Vice President and 

Chief Operating Officer 


Executive Vice President and 

Chief Financial Officer 

Barrett J. Rollins, MD, PhD 

Chief Scientific Officer 

Stephen E. Sallan, MD 

Chief of Staff; 

Chair, Medical Staff Executive 

Committee 

Lawrence N. Shulman, MD 

Chief Medical Officer; 

Senior Vice President, Medical Affairs; 

Chief, General Oncology, Medical 

Oncology 

Steven R. Singer 

Senior Vice President, 

Communications 

RESEARCH LEADERSHIP 

Professional Administration 


President; Director, DF/HCC 

Beverly R. Ginsburg, MBA 

Senior Vice President, Research, DFCI; 

Associate Director, Administration, 

DF/HCC 

Barrett J. Rollins, MD, PhD 

Chief Scientific Officer 

Executive Committee for Research 

David M. Livingston, MD 

Chair 

Harvey Cantor, MD 

Alan D. D’Andrea, MD 

Beverly R. Ginsburg, MBA * 


David P. Harrington, PhD 

J. Dirk Iglehart, MD 

Dennis C. Lynch, MD, PhD * 

Lee M. Nadler, MD 


Thomas M. Roberts, PhD 

Barrett J. Rollins, MD, PhD * 

Jane C. Weeks, MD, MSc 

Department of Medical Oncology 


Chair 

Department of Biostatistics 

and Computational Biology 

David P. Harrington, PhD 

Chair 

Paul J. Catalano, ScD 

Associate Chair 

Department of Cancer Biology 

Thomas M. Roberts, PhD 

Charles D. Stiles, PhD 

Co-Chairs 

Department of Cancer 

Immunology and AIDS 

Harvey Cantor, MD 

Chair 

Department of Pediatric Oncology 


Chair 

Department of Radiation Oncology 

Jay R. Harris, MD 

Chair 

* ex-officio 



D ANA-FARBER, INC. 

CORPORATE OFFICERS 


Chairman 


President and Chief Executive Officer 

TRUSTEES 



Stephen B. Kay 



Treasurer and Vice Chairman 




Secretary 



Kathleen Harkey 


Dana-Farber, Inc. manages the investments of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Inc. 




FRIENDS OF DANA-FARBER CANCER INSTITUTE 

Co-Presidents 

Lauren Frei 

Nancy L. Socol 

Executive Vice President 

Diane Flynn 

Vice Presidents 

Cheryl Eckel 

Tobey Oresman 

Tina Peters 

Treasurer 

Loren Baum Edwards 


Ed Perlmutter 

Recording Secretary 

Mary Ann Chase 

Members 

Andrea R. Abraham * 

Suzanne Fisher Bloomberg 

Maureen Champa 

Suzanne W. Conlin * 

Alice Cutler * 

Annette Feinstein 

Jean Feuer 

Jayne Bennett Friedberg * 

Nanci Gelb 

Christina Glen 

Elaine Goldenberg 

Micki Hirsch 

Jane M. Holt * 

Barbara Lapp 

Rebecca Latimore 

Elizabeth M. Loughlin 

JoAnne Marshall 

F. Jane May 

Jane B. Mayer 

Roberta McNulty 

Jane R. Moss 

Jean F. Pearlstein * 

Kelly Pesek 

Kristienne Perry Rassiger 

Kelly Sohn 

Dana Gerson Unger 

Members-at-Large 

Nikki Bialow 

Nancy Cutler 

Terri Hupalo 

Audra Lank 

Louise Nolan 

Robin Reibel 

Terri Tsagaris 

Honorary Directors 

Jean Speare Canellos * 

Louise S. Shivek 


Marilyn N. Wolman 

Founding President 

Sheila Driscoll Cunningham *+ 

Program Coordinator 

Lindsay G. Fisch 

Administrative Assistants 

Linda R. Ciardi 

Elaine L. Tinetti 

TRUSTEE CHAIRS 

PRESIDENT’S VISITING 

COMMITTEES 

Gastrointestinal Cancer Center 

Michele Kessler 

Paula Sidman 

Hematologic Oncology 

Marc Cohen 

Alan Hirschfield 

Jimmy Fund 

Nancy Q. Gibson 


The Lank Center for 

Genitourinary Oncology 

Bertram and Althea Lank 

(Honorary Co-Chairs) 

Arthur Gelb, ScD 

William Poutsiaka 

Women’s Cancers Program 


HEALTHCARE DIMENSIONS 

HOSPICE 

Board of Directors prior to 

November 1, 2006 

President 

James B. Conway 

Treasurer 



Michael Desocio 

Clerk 

Patricia A. Evans, Esq. 

Assistant Clerk 

Nancy Ferrante 

Directors 

Janet Abrahm, MD 

Ndubuisi Azubuine 

Andrew Billings, MD 

Wayne F. Brasco Sr. 

Allen S. Danis 

Lachlan Forrow, MD 

Barbara Levine 

Craig M. Lilly, MD 

Debora Lingos 

Judith Miller 

Janet Porter 


Evelyn Reading 

Celeste Robb-Nicholson, MD 

Suzanne Stoltmann-Dorsey 

Margaret Vettese, PhD, RN 

Jane Weingarten 

* Past President 

+ Deceased 

Dana-Farber transferred ownership of 

HealthCare Dimensions Hospice to Partners 

Home Care, a nonprofit provider of homebased 

medical care, as of Nov. 1, 2006. The 

now-named Partners Hospice provides comprehensive 

end-of-life services to adults and 

children with advanced terminal illnesses, 

including cancer. 



® 

DANA-FARBER CANCER INSTITUTE ... 

“Dedicated to discovery ... committed to care” is the mission of Dana-Farber 

Cancer Institute (DFCI), described as “one of the world’s premier cancer centers” 

by the National Cancer Institute. Founded in 1947 by Sidney Farber, MD, 

Dana-Farber is renowned for its unique blend of basic and clinical research and 

for using its discoveries to improve the treatment of adults and children with 

cancer. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center – 

one of 39 nationally designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers. A teaching 

affiliate of Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber is also one of 20 federal 

Centers for AIDS Research in the United States, and is consistently ranked one 

of the top cancer centers in the country by U.S.News & World Report. It has 

also earned “Magnet” status for excellence in nursing. 

Dana-Farber partners with Brigham and Women’s Hospital to deliver care for 

adults with cancer through Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center. 

It also has a longstanding alliance with Children’s Hospital Boston to care for 

pediatric cancer patients through Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Care. 

By bringing together the strengths of three world-class institutions, these partnerships 

provide an exceptional level of care for cancer patients and their families. 

... AND THE JIMMY FUND 

The Jimmy Fund supports the fight against cancer at Dana-Farber, helping to 

raise both funds and the chances of survival for children and adults around the 

world. Named to protect the anonymity of one of Dr. Sidney Farber’s young 

patients, the Jimmy Fund was established in 1948 by the Variety Club of New 

England in conjunction with the Boston Braves baseball team. Later adopted as 

the official cause of the Boston Red Sox, the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police 

Association, and the annual Pan-Massachusetts Challenge bike-a-thon, the Jimmy 

Fund is widely regarded as “New England’s favorite charity.” Individual and 

corporate gifts, many of them collected through hundreds of annual Jimmy Fund 

events, have helped the organization generate millions of dollars for cancer 

research and care at Dana-Farber over the decades.

A FATHER’S ILLNESS, 

ASON’S QUEST 

I first started thinking seriously about a career in 

cancer biology when my father was diagnosed with 

advanced prostate cancer while I was an MD-PhD 

student at Harvard Medical School. Although my 

graduate work was in a different field, I soon began 

to spend all of my spare time poring over the medical 

and scientific literature related to cancer. I 

became captivated by the scientific understanding 

of malignancy – but also somewhat distressed by the 

difficulties inherent in using this knowledge to help 

oncology patients such as my father. This goal of 

translating cancer science into medical advances has 

since become my passion and life’s work. 

I feel fortunate to be a physician-scientist at Dana- 

Farber. My research involves using genomics technologies 

to identify mutations in cancer cell DNA, 

and to understand how those mutations might make 

cancer cells vulnerable to new targeted therapies. 

I’m confident this type of work will help bring 

about a day when treatment for even the most deadly 

cancers can be tailored to the specific mutations in 

each patient’s tumor. Dana-Farber is a world leader 

in this effort to which I am honored to contribute. 

I know my father would be pleased. 

– Levi Garraway, MD, PhD 

Please visit us online at 

www.dana-farber.org 

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute 

44 Binney Street 

Boston, MA 02115-6084 

(617) 632-4090 

www.dana-farber.org 

Non-profit Org. 

U.S. Postage 

P A I D 

Dana-Farber 

A teaching affiliate of 

Harvard Medical School

MOLECULAR ENGINEERS - Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

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