Pioneering Scientist,
Compassionate Physician
Dr. Emil J. Freireich
Dr. Emil J Freireich (right) tells Javier
Ayala, a recovered leukemia patient, about his pioneering cancer research.
The persistence that helped him overcome childhood poverty and become
a physician at age 22 provides an early explanation for why Dr. Emil J
Freireich was so motivated to make pioneering contributions to clinical
cancer research.
"As long as I can remember, I wanted to improve things for me
and everybody else, and I was willing to work hard to do so," he confided
recently on the eve of his 70th birthday.
With time, thousands of leukemia patients throughout the world would
benefit from his determination to overcome the dismal outlook he faced
as a young doctor trying to treat the then-deadly disease. Certainly, he
didn't turn the tide alone, but many colleagues who have witnessed his
tenacity over four decades credit Dr. Freireich with the creative leadership
largely responsible for reversing the prognosis for acute leukemia.
Today, Dr. Freireich continues caring for patients, inspiring associates
to investigate new research ideas, writing scientific papers and teaching
fellows and others who come to M. D. Anderson, where he directs the Adult
Leukemia Research Program and holds the Ruth Harriet Ainsworth Chair in
Developmental Therapeutics. After 32 years here, he still amazes with his
whirlwind schedule and the passion with which he pursues so many activities.
When he was born March 16, 1927, his parents named him after his paternal
grandfather, adding the initial J-but without a period-to distinguish the
two. "Perhaps my parents knew I'd be different," he muses. The
initial doesn't stand for anything.
After his father died when he was not quite 3, his mother worked long
hours in a hat factory to support him and an older sister. He remembers
being "poor, uncoordinated and chubby" and "the kid the
other kids tried to beat up." Yet even as a boy growing up in inner-city
Chicago during the Depression, he dreamed about one day making a difference.
A high school physics teacher recognized his potential and encouraged
him to enter college when he was 16. Fortunately, a family friend knew
a woman who gave him $25, which covered a one-way train ticket and the
first tuition at the University of Illinois in Champaign plus a week's
rent. He waited tables and did various cleaning chores to support himself.
By the time he completed a bachelor's degree, he was working on his medical
degree, which he obtained with honors from the University of Illinois Medical
School in 1949.
Dr. Freireich's original goal was to be a family physician, partly
because he thought his own family doctor was "compassionate and effective."
But after an internship and a residency in internal medicine at two Chicago
hospitals, he accepted a two-year fellowship in hematology at Massachusetts
Memorial Hospital in Boston, where he conducted and published an original
study of anemia. In 1955, he went to the National Cancer Institute (NCI)
as a senior investigator and director of its leukemia program.
"Back then, the treatment for acute leukemia was very primitive.
Everyone died within a short time . . . Chemotherapy was new and promising,
yet we lost patients to massive hemorrhaging or infections before the drugs
had a chance," he recalls.
Within a year, Dr. Freireich discovered that patients bled to death
due to insufficient platelets, the tiny colorless discs in circulating
blood that promote clotting. Then he showed that, even when the bleeding
could be controlled, patients were overwhelmed with infections because
of inadequate granulocytes, white blood cells needed to fight infectious
agents.
Dr. Freireich shared his ideas for an automatic blood separating machine
with George Judson, an IBM engineer who built several rough units. The
excited hematologist knew the project "was much bigger than Judson's
garage could handle" and pushed for an agreement between NCI and IBM
to develop the first continuous-flow blood cell separator, which allowed
platelets and granulocytes to be removed from donors' whole blood and later
transfused to patients. He holds the patent on that machine.
During 10 years at NCI, Dr. Freireich was the first physician-scientist
to conduct randomized clinical trials. He and colleagues did the early
studies of intensive intermittent combination chemotherapy that prolonged
survival for patients with childhood lymphocytic leukemia and Hodgkin's
disease. In time, his principles were applied to many other cancers.
Upon joining M. D. Anderson in 1965, Dr. Freireich accelerated the
anti-cancer drug studies that would cement his reputation as a founding
father of clinical cancer research. His contagious optimism helped recruit
experienced physicians and scientists and galvanized a new generation of
hematologists and oncologists to make impressive discoveries.
A two-day symposium last spring saluted Dr. Freireich's career-long
contributions and commemorated his 70th birthday. He was praised for "always
being passionate about his patients" and for tremendous vision, superb
scientific studies and exemplary teaching skills. One speaker noted he
had helped develop and evaluate more than 70 new anti-cancer drugs.
M. D. Anderson President Dr. John Mendelsohn says when he was a young
physician entering oncology training he selected Dr. Freireich as a role
model. "Over the years, I often visited M. D. Anderson and witnessed
his creativity and inspiration," he notes.
One symposium highlight was presentation of the first Freireich Award,
which will be given annually to a young clinical researcher carrying on
his tradition of excellence. Dr. Freireich told the conference, "As
we prepare for the next millennium, one of our highest priorities must
be training, funding and retaining bright young clinical scientists to
provide the bridging research (from patients' beds to the laboratories
and back) that will assure we can finally overcome every cancer."
Later, Dr. Freireich says he was "deeply moved" by the tributes.
"I've spent my entire adult life teaching and sharing ideas, so this
symposium warmed my heart." He also says he feels "truly blessed"
to have been married to Deanie for 44 years. They have two daughters, two
sons and four grandchildren.
Dr. Freireich's curriculum vitae lists several pages of honors, many
organizational activities and almost 600 articles he has authored or co-authored.
Two recent awards were the Outstanding Teacher Award from M. D. Anderson's
medical oncology fellows and the Medicus Hippocraticus Award presented
at the First International Medical Olympiad in Greece.