82S10819 CBE-D
By: Craddick H.R. No. 127
R E S O L U T I O N
WHEREAS, John Mendelsohn, M.D., is stepping down as president
of The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center on September
1, 2011, concluding 15 years of dedicated service in which he has
made significant contributions to cancer research, treatment,
education, and prevention; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Mendelsohn has accomplished much during his
tenure, perhaps most notably growing the institution's budget and
capacity to double their previous size; he has also implemented new
priorities for integrated programs in patient care, research,
education, and cancer prevention, and under his direction, M. D.
Anderson has been named the top cancer hospital in the nation seven
times in the U.S. News & World Report "America's Best Hospitals"
survey; and
WHEREAS, A cum laude graduate of Harvard Medical School,
Dr. Mendelsohn served his residency in internal medicine at Brigham
and Women's Hospital in Boston and completed fellowships at the
National Institutes of Health and the Washington University School
of Medicine; in 1970, he joined the faculty of the University of
California San Diego, where he became the founding director of a
National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center; he went on to
chair the department of medicine at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center from 1985 to 1996 and to hold the hospital's Winthrop
Rockefeller Chair in Medical Oncology; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Mendelsohn's research while serving as
professor and vice chair of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical
College pioneered the concept of targeted anti-receptor therapy as
a new form of cancer treatment; that groundbreaking work earned him
the Dan David Prize in Cancer Therapy, and antibody 225 was approved
by the FDA for colon cancer in 2004 and for head and neck cancer in
2006; in addition, he has authored more than 250 scientific papers
and articles and was the founding editor of Clinical Cancer
Research for 10 years; and
WHEREAS, The recipient of numerous other prestigious honors,
Dr. Mendelsohn is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the
National Academy of Sciences, and in 2010, he was elected as the
first chair of the Worldwide Innovative Networking Consortium in
Personalized Cancer Medicine; his passion remains developing and
testing new cancer therapies, and he will continue his affiliation
with M. D. Anderson as codirector of the new Sheikh Khalifa Bin
Zayed Al Nahyan Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy; and
WHEREAS, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
is today among the most sophisticated and advanced cancer centers
in the world, thanks in part to the far-reaching vision of Dr. John
Mendelsohn, and the full impact of his exceptional leadership will
continue to resonate for years to come; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 82nd Texas
Legislature, 1st Called Session, hereby honor Dr. John Mendelsohn
for his outstanding direction of The University of Texas M. D.
Anderson Cancer Center and commend him for his lifelong commitment
to medical science; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That an official copy of this resolution be
prepared for Dr. Mendelsohn as an expression of high regard by the
Texas House of Representatives.