Emil "Tom" Frei III

Emil Frei III (1924-2013) arrived at the National Cancer Institute in 1955 and, with Emil Freireich, ran the first randomised trials in leukaemia and the VAMP combination that produced the first cures of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. He argued from bacterial resistance to tuberculosis that cancers should be attacked with several drugs at once, a principle applied at the NCI in the MOPP regimen that made advanced Hodgkin lymphoma curable. He moved to MD Anderson in 1965 and in 1972 became director and physician-in-chief of the Sidney Farber Cancer Center in Boston, later Dana-Farber, where he led work on adjuvant chemotherapy for osteosarcoma and breast cancer and high-dose therapy. He received the Lasker Award in 1972 with Freireich, Pinkel and others for the cure of childhood leukaemia.