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President's Message

The basic, translational, clinical, and population research projects described here by nearly 600 scientists and physicians demonstrate why M. D. Anderson has earned an international reputation for scientific excellence and outstanding research-driven cancer care. Collectively, these research summaries convey considerable recent progress against cancer as well as the excitement we share for promising new opportunities to control this age-old disease.

It was through research that our founders envisioned reducing the toll cancer then took on people in Texas and eventually around the world. Early research-based discoveries were a crucial part of M. D. Anderson's designation as one of the country's first three comprehensive cancer centers under terms of the National Cancer Act of 1971. Increasingly productive research has assured our continuing redesignation and high ranking among the current 39 National Cancer Institute (NCI) comprehensive centers.

Research expenditures for fiscal year 2006 totaled $410 million, a 240% increase over the previous 10 years. That total included $182 million in federal grants and contracts. In fact, our faculty have been awarded more competitive grants--both in number and total funds--from NCI than any other academic center for several consecutive years. M. D. Anderson now holds 10 Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) grants from NCI, also more than any other institution.

Another important measure: M. D. Anderson has been ranked among the nation's top two cancer hospitals by U.S. News & World Report since its annual "America's Best Hospitals" survey began in 1990. A key factor in this selection is our reputation for research-driven patient care that includes offering more clinical trials than other cancer center.

During 2008, M. D. Anderson marks the 33rd anniversary of our Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) from NCI. The CCSG supports the shared core services that allow us to carry out multiple research programs in laboratories located throughout our main complex in Houston as well as at M. D. Anderson's two-unit Science Park in Bastrop County, Texas. In addition to this vital infrastructure, the CCSG supplies pilot funding for innovative research directed at improving patient care and important start-up resources for junior faculty.

Providing additional state-of-the-art facilities in which the faculty can expand their research is essential to fulfilling our strategic vision for the future. We have recently added new buildings dedicated to our integrated patient care, research, education, and cancer prevention mission. One of these is the nine-story George and Cynthia Mitchell Basic Sciences Research Building (BSRB) that connects to M. D. Anderson's Clinical Research Building north of the main complex. The BSRB includes six floors of sorely needed research laboratories, a vivarium, and administrative offices and classrooms for The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston (GSBS), which is jointly operated by M. D. Anderson and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Since 2002, GSBS students have received doctor of philosophy and master of science degrees awarded by both institutions.

Other facilities recently opened include the eight-floor Peggy and Lowry Mays Clinic and the adjoining eight-story Cancer Prevention Building, located across Holcombe Boulevard from M. D. Anderson's Main Building and connected by a skybridge. The Mays Clinic provides expanded homes for some of the clinical research activities conducted in the Nellie B. Connally Breast Center, the Laura Lee Blanton Gynecologic Oncology Center, and the Genitourinary Oncology Center plus a new 75-bed Ambulatory Treatment Center. The Cancer Prevention Building houses faculty who coordinate multiple research programs in the departments of Clinical Cancer Prevention, Behavioral Science, Epidemiology, and Health Disparities Research plus clinical activities for the Cancer Prevention Center.

Completion of the South Campus Research Building I (SCRB1) in 2003 set in motion a major expansion of M. D. Anderson's research programs in the new University of Texas Research Park about a mile south of the main campus. SCRB1 houses the Center for Cancer Immunology Research and was joined in 2005 by the second new research building, the Saberioon Building, which houses the Robert J. Kleberg, Jr., and Helen C. Kleberg Center for Molecular Markers. These two facilities join the existing Cancer Metastasis Research Center, which began more than 2 decades ago in the R. E. "Bob" Smith Research Building. The Proton Therapy Center began seeing patients and undertaking research in the spring of 2006. Two additional research buildings are under construction and/or design on the University of Texas Research Park site: The Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging Research, a joint building with The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and the Center for Targeted Therapy.

M. D. Anderson's success and international stature stem from our prolific research, which improves our understanding of cancer and supports our exceptional patient care, training, and cancer prevention programs. Since joining the faculty in 1996, I have been privileged to witness the development of the outstanding research programs outlined in this report. As a clinical scientist, I know that at no time in human history have the prospects been more promising for making major advances against cancer through research. No academic center is better prepared to contribute to the goal of reducing the impact of cancer for people everywhere. As president of M. D. Anderson, I applaud the devotion of our faculty, staff, and volunteers to our core values of caring, integrity, and discovery.


John Mendelsohn, M.D.
President