A special Children’s Cancer Fund grant of $525,000, added to previously donated funds, will provide four years of start-up research support for Dr. Scott Cameron. A board-certified pediatric oncologist, Cameron comes to Dallas from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard. His research probes the fundamental mechanisms of cell growth, differentiation and death, and the links between nature’s programmed cell death and cancer.
“Cameron is a first-class pediatrician, molecular biologist and cancer specialist, and he will augment UT Southwestern’s core of internationally known oncologists and basic scientists already studying the cellular and molecular causes of cancer,” said Dr. George Buchanan, professor of pediatrics and director of the university’s pediatric cancer program within the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. Buchanan has also been a beneficiary of the Children’s Cancer Fund’s generosity as holder of the Children’s Cancer Fund Distinguished Chair in Pediatric Oncology and Hematology, established in 1993.
In addition to his position as assistant professor in both pediatrics and molecular biology at UT Southwestern, Cameron will also be an attending physician at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas.
“We’re very excited about Dr. Cameron coming aboard to enhance cancer research at UT Southwestern and treatment of cancer patients at Children’s Medical Center,” said Dr. William S. Edell, president of Children’s Cancer Fund. The organization was formed in 1982 by parents of children being treated for cancer at Children’s Medical Center under the care of UT Southwestern physicians.
In February 2000, the Children’s Cancer Fund provided a $2 million challenge gift to UT Southwestern to create a $6 million comprehensive pediatric-cancer research center. The gift was the largest single research pledge in the fund’s 18-year history. Additional gifts and pledges from other donors totaling $3 million have been received to date.
Other programs supported by Children’s Cancer Fund include clinical trials for new leukemia therapies, development of new treatments to reduce the side effects and the costs of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, molecular studies of liver and kidney tumors, and training of young pediatricians to become blood and cancer specialists.
“The Children’s Cancer Fund has been a critically important partner of UT Southwestern and Children’s Medical Center in our efforts to provide state-of-the-art care for children with cancer and to conduct cutting-edge research that will lead to prevention and cures,” said UT Southwestern president Dr. Kern Wildenthal. “We are thrilled that the Children’s Cancer Fund’s most recent gift will launch the career of such a gifted clinician/scientist as Dr. Cameron.”
Cameron graduated from the Health Sciences and Technology Program at MIT/Harvard Medical School and earned a doctorate in genetics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He completed an internship and residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital in Boston and a fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
He has received young investigator awards from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Merck/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Collaborative Program.
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