The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York is a cancer treatment and research institution founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) is actually composed of two intimately-related institutions. Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases provides patient care, while Sloan-Kettering Institute is MSKCC's basic-science research arm. The research institute was established in 1945 with a $4,000,000 gift from the foundation of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Half the gift was to fund construction of a 13-story research facility and the other half to provide annual operating expenses. Charles F. Kettering, vice president and director of research for General Motors Corporation, was to organize and apply modern American industrial research techniques to cancer research. In addition to the Sloan grant, a public campaign to raise an additional $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 was undertaken.

At the August 8, 1945 announcement, Sloan and Kettering emphasized that the dramatic news of the atomic bomb, developed with a $2 billion research program was a graphic illustration of what can be accomplished by scientifically organized research as practiced by American industry. If as much money and talented personnel were available as the Government had had for the atomic bomb, they said, very rapid progress could be made in cancer research.

MSKCC has long been a leader in cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. It was the first to develop services specifically dedicated to the psychiatric aspects of cancer, to the relief of cancer pain, and to genetic counseling. U.S. News and World Report ranks MSKCC as the best cancer hospital in the country. Since that particular rating service began, only M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston has rivaled MSKCC.

MSKCC is affiliated with the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and the Tri-Institutional MD/PhD program, which includes MSKCC as one of its three sites (along with Weill-Cornell and Rockefeller University). MSKCC and Weill-Cornell operate a joint graduate program in biomedical sciences. In 2006, MSKCC also established an independent graduate school, with a PhD program in cancer biology: the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

The current president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering is Nobel Prize winner Harold Varmus.

External links

• Official website
• Cancer-help.org - Recent mentions in the online press
• Weill Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
• Gerstner Sloan-Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
• Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program
• MSKCC Marathon Program

Sources

• "Sloan, Kettering to Combat Cancer", New York Times, August 8, 1945, page 1. cont'd page 40.

Cancer organizations | Healthcare in New York City | Hospitals in New York