{"entity":{"id":"sidney-farber","kind":"person","name":"Sidney Farber","aka":[],"tldr":"In 1947-48 he showed that the folate antagonist aminopterin could send childhood leukaemia into remission, the first drug ever to do so. He then built Dana-Farber and, with Mary Lasker, won the 1971 National Cancer Act.","summary":"Sidney Farber (1903-1973) was a paediatric pathologist at Children's Hospital Boston who, in 1947, tested Yellapragada Subbarow's folic acid antagonists in children with acute leukaemia, a disease then universally and quickly fatal. His June 1948 New England Journal of Medicine paper reported temporary remissions in ten of sixteen children given aminopterin, the first demonstration that a drug could reverse a cancer, and the origin of methotrexate and of chemotherapy as a discipline. He founded the Children's Cancer Research Foundation in 1947, which became the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the 1948 Jimmy Fund broadcast gave it a public base. In the 1950s he showed actinomycin D was active in Wilms tumour. With Mary Lasker he was the most effective scientific witness in the campaign for federal cancer funding that produced the National Cancer Act of 1971.","asOf":"2026-09-09","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Farber","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Farber"},{"label":"Dana-Farber Cancer Institute","url":"https://www.dana-farber.org/"}],"tags":["hero","pioneer"],"related":[],"cancers":["all-leukemia","wilms-tumor"],"sections":["chemotherapy"],"technologies":["cytotoxic-chemotherapy"],"targets":[],"drugs":["methotrexate","dactinomycin"],"companies":[],"institutions":["dana-farber"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":["robert-sandler","einar-gustafson","mary-lasker","emil-frei"],"bottlenecks":["b-funding-allocation","b-rare-cancers"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Pathologist who produced the first chemotherapy remissions in childhood leukaemia; father of modern chemotherapy","specialisms":["Paediatric pathology","Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia","Chemotherapy","Research advocacy"],"profiles":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Farber"},{"label":"Dana-Farber Cancer Institute","url":"https://www.dana-farber.org/"}],"papers":[{"title":"Temporary Remissions in Acute Leukemia in Children Produced by Folic Acid Antagonist, 4-Aminopteroyl-Glutamic Acid (Aminopterin)","journal":"New England Journal of Medicine","year":1948,"doi":"10.1056/nejm194806032382301"},{"title":"Chemotherapy in the Treatment of Leukemia and Wilms' Tumor","journal":"JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association","year":1966,"doi":"10.1001/jama.1966.03110210076025"},{"title":"SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE EFFECT OF FOLIC ACID ANTAGONISTS ON ACUTE LEUKEMIA AND OTHER FORMS OF INCURABLE CANCER","journal":"Blood","year":1949,"doi":"10.1182/blood.v4.2.160.160"}]},"route":"/people/sidney-farber/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"all-leukemia","kind":"cancer","name":"Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia","route":"/cancers/all-leukemia/"},{"id":"wilms-tumor","kind":"cancer","name":"Wilms tumour (nephroblastoma)","route":"/cancers/wilms-tumor/"}],"section":[{"id":"chemotherapy","kind":"section","name":"Chemotherapy","route":"/fronts/chemotherapy/"}],"technology":[{"id":"cytotoxic-chemotherapy","kind":"technology","name":"Cytotoxic chemotherapy","route":"/technologies/cytotoxic-chemotherapy/"}],"drug":[{"id":"dactinomycin","kind":"drug","name":"Dactinomycin (actinomycin D)","route":"/drugs/dactinomycin/"},{"id":"methotrexate","kind":"drug","name":"Methotrexate","route":"/drugs/methotrexate/"}],"institution":[{"id":"dana-farber","kind":"institution","name":"Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center","route":"/institutions/dana-farber/"},{"id":"jimmy-fund","kind":"institution","name":"The Jimmy Fund","route":"/institutions/jimmy-fund/"}],"person":[{"id":"einar-gustafson","kind":"person","name":"Einar \"Jimmy\" Gustafson","route":"/people/einar-gustafson/"},{"id":"emil-frei","kind":"person","name":"Emil \"Tom\" Frei III","route":"/people/emil-frei/"},{"id":"mary-lasker","kind":"person","name":"Mary Lasker","route":"/people/mary-lasker/"},{"id":"robert-sandler","kind":"person","name":"Robert Sandler","route":"/people/robert-sandler/"},{"id":"ted-williams","kind":"person","name":"Ted Williams","route":"/people/ted-williams/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-funding-allocation","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Funding follows fashion, not burden","route":"/bottlenecks/b-funding-allocation/"},{"id":"b-rare-cancers","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Rare and paediatric cancers without markets","route":"/bottlenecks/b-rare-cancers/"}]}}