Selwyn Vickers, MD, FACS, shares his experience with AMFDP and how it played a pivotal role in his career.
The Harold Amos, or at the time, Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship set the course of my academic career. It provided a foundation of funding as a new faculty member at UAB coming from Johns Hopkins. It established the basis of a relationship with my research mentor and colleague, Tony Thompson. It also legitimized, in many ways, my efforts and pathway in running a lab while being a busy clinician. Thus, it was foundational, if you will, in many ways for the beginning of my academic career.
The research that it funded produced significant work in understanding the oncogenesis of pancreatic cancer as it related to fibroblast growth factor type 1. It also provided the platform for early studies in gene therapy with adenoviruses to treat pancreatic cancer, which eventually led to a conditionally replicative adenovirus clinical trial for pancreatic cancer.
This platform became the springboard for my leadership and role as the PI in one of the first three pancreatic cancer SPORE programs—Special Programs in Organ Research Excellence and Science—which provided a comprehensive approach to addressing cancers from the NCI, with the only programs at Nebraska, UAB, and Johns Hopkins. This NCI program became foundational for my growth as an academic leader, department chair, dean, and eventually CEO.
Selwyn Vickers, MD, FACS
President and CEO, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
1994 AMFDP Scholar