Jane Cooke Wright (1919–2013): Pioneering oncologist, woman and humanitarian

Abstract

Jane Wright was a fundamental researcher in cancer chemotherapy in the 1950s–1980s and was one of the first scientists to test anti-cancer drugs on humans rather than solely on mice, discovering the use of the popular antimetabolite drug methotrexate on solid tumours. From her research she was able to conclude which specific anti-cancer agents would have the greatest lethal effect on a patient’s certain cancer type and she invented a method of delivering chemotherapy agents directly to an internal cancer site. During a time when the Civil Rights in the United States of America were undergoing a transformation to reduce the discrimination and segregation imposed on African Americans and the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr made a speech to call for an end to racism in 1963, Jane Wright became the first African American to hold such a high position at a nationally recognised institution and the first woman to be elected President of the New York Cancer Society. US President Lyndon B Johnson appointed Jane to the President’s Commission of Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke (serving 1964–1965) and the National Cancer Advisory Board (serving 1966–1970). Jane retired in 1987 by which time she had published more than 75 scientific papers, led delegations of oncologists in China, the former Soviet Union, Africa and Europe and held key positions in various international and national organisations. Jane Wright passed away on 19 February 2013 aged 93 but her legacy lives on in the name of an award from the American Association of Cancer Research.