JOHN MENDELSOHN, MD

John Mendelsohn, MD, was a pioneering physician-scientist, a hematologist, and an oncologist whose research contributed to the development of targeted cancer therapies. He was a skilled academic leader who established cutting-edge clinical, research, and teaching programs first at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and then at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He was known as a kind and thoughtful colleague whom many turned to for his wisdom and mentoring. An ACCA member since 1987, Dr. Mendelsohn died January 7, 2019, at age 82.

Born to parents of modest means—his father ran a “belts & suspenders” store—Mendelsohn grew up in Cincinnati within a close knit and highly intellectual extended family who remained a great support to him (and he to them) throughout his life. Like his brother Richard, he attended Harvard College where he was the first undergraduate to work in the Harvard laboratory of a new assistant professor and future Nobel laureate James Watson, PhD. Following graduation, Mendelsohn studied biochemistry as a Fulbright Scholar at Glasgow University. Next, he matriculated at Harvard Medical School and graduated cum laude in 1963.

Mendelsohn completed a medicine internship and his residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women's Hospital) and then pursued postdoctoral studies at the NIH. He completed advanced clinical training in hematology at the Barnes Jewish Hospital of Washington University in St. Louis.

In 1970, he was invited to become the chief of hematology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) by its inaugural chairman, Eugene Braunwald, MD, an early and influential mentor. At UCSD, Mendelsohn began to transition his research from a pure laboratory base to “applied basic research” that was informed by and responsive to patients' specific needs. It was an early form of precision medicine. He developed an antibody to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGF-R) that was initially named “monoclonal antibody 225” and is now known as cetuximab. It was approved by the FDA as Erbitux® for the treatment of colon (2004) and squamous cell (2006) cancers—one of the first demonstrations of the ability of antibodies to serve as effective cancer chemotherapeutic agents. Erbitux continues to be widely used in oncology practice.

Mendelsohn became the chair of medicine and co-director of the Program in Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 1985 and served in this role and as professor and vice chairman of medicine at Cornell University Medical College.

From 1996 to 2011, Mendelsohn served as president and CEO of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas and subsequently as director of the Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy at MD Anderson from 2011 until his retirement in 2018, soon after the diagnosis of his own glioblastoma. At MD Anderson, Mendelsohn raised more than a billion dollars and led a critical phase of growth in clinical and research programs, which established the institution as the nation's largest cancer center. The University of Texas recognized these accomplishments through its dedication of the John Mendelsohn Faculty Center building in 2012.

Along the way, Mendelsohn made it a priority to help his colleagues and trainees succeed in both science and life. “I have willfully incorporated ways of approaching life's challenges and opportunities into myself that I selected from role models,” Mendelsohn wrote in his memoir.

Mendelsohn was an avid read on many topics—from science to humanism to theology—and a lover of classical music, opera, and poetry, which he shared with his family, friends, and colleagues. With his wife Anne, he provided important philanthropic support for the Metropolitan Opera and the Houston Grand Opera, serving as chairman of the board for the latter.

Mendelsohn was the founding editor-in-chief of Clinical Cancer Research. He received several prestigious awards including the American Association for Cancer Research Joseph H. Burchenal Clinical Research Award, the Dorothy P. Landon Prize for Translational Cancer Research, the Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research, and the Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science for his role in developing targeted cancer therapies. Mendelsohn was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Braunwald describes Mendelsohn as having “a brilliant mind, intense dedication to both patient care and research but with time for family and for a number of non-medical intellectual activities. Even as a young man, John contributed important ideas to the framing of the next generation of clinical hematologists and oncologists and, at the same time, was a patron of the arts and a true ‘Renaissance Man.’”

The Wall Street Journal published an editorial after his passing, aptly placing his contributions into context: “Mendelsohn retired from MD Anderson in 2011 but remained an evangelist for the discoveries that are making many types of cancer a manageable chronic disease. The doctor died of glioblastoma, the aggressive brain cancer that also killed John McCain, which shows how far we still have to go to cure America's second leading cause of death. But hundreds of thousands will live longer and better lives thanks to John Mendelsohn.”

Joel T. Katz, MD, and (by invitation) Michael E. Mendelsohn, MD