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Home / Washington Business - May/June 2007 / Profile: E. Donnall Thomas, M.D., Nobel Laureate, Emeritus Director of Clinical Research, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle |
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Profile: E. Donnall Thomas, M.D., Nobel Laureate, Emeritus Director of Clinical Research, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle |
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Written On: May/June 2007 |
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Written By: by Daniel Brunell |
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Dr. E. Donnall Thomas is nothing if not self-effacing. The recipient of the 1990 Nobel Prize, his small office in the building that bears his name is a simple affair. About 20 feet square with two workstations on each side of the room, this is where Thomas has been doing the bulk of his work for more than three decades. His pioneering work in bone marrow transplantation for the treatment of leukemia ranks among the most significant medical advances of the 20th century.
Thomas has worked side-by-side with his wife, Dottie, throughout his career. They have both become institutions in the Seattle medical community. In their modest office, the Thomases greet interviewers, former patients, fellow doctors, and old friends that drop by to visit. "I might have retired years ago," said Thomas in his soft Texan twang. "Somehow, I haven’t been able to leave."
Born and raised in Mart, Texas, Thomas received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, where he also met Dottie. "I was coming out of class one day after a freak snowstorm in Austin," recounts Thomas. "Out of nowhere, I get hit by a snowball that was thrown by this girl that I would latter marry."
Hoping to follow in his father’s footsteps as a medical doctor, Thomas entered the U.S. Army medical training program during World War II and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1946. After completing his military service as a medical internist, he spent several years as a research fellow at a number of universities and hospitals, as well as two years as an instructor in medicine at Harvard.
In 1963, Thomas came to the Pacific Northwest to join the faculty of the University of Washington School of Medicine. It was at this point that Thomas began his ground-breaking work in the treatment of leukemia.
"I was working with Dr. Joseph Murray when we did the first successful human organ transplant," said Thomas. "While working on this, I started thinking, 'What if we could do the same for bone marrow for leukemia?'" Having no room at the UW for this research, Thomas borrowed space in the basement of the old Seattle Public Hospital. "When doctors from around the world came and saw the conditions we were doing our research in, they were a little taken aback," said Thomas.
Slowly, Thomas developed a dedicated team that included Dottie, who served as lab technician. In 1972, the Seattle Public Hospital closed. Unable to find room at the UW and or other medical establishments, Thomas moved his team in 1975 to new quarters at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, which had just opened. They’ve been there ever since.
Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, a time when a leukemia diagnosis was a death sentence, Thomas and his team sought to do what others were convinced was impossible—to cure leukemia and other cancers of the blood by destroying a patient's diseased bone marrow with near-lethal doses of radiation and chemotherapy, and then rescuing the patient by transplanting healthy marrow. The goal was to establish a fully functioning and cancer-free blood and immune system. Thomas and his team slowly overcame the obstacles facing them, culminating in the first successful bone marrow transplant for a leukemia patient in 1969.
This marked a new era in leukemia treatment. When Thomas started his work, the survival rate for leukemia was virtually zero. Today, after more than 11,000 bone marrow transplants, the procedure is considered to be one of the 20th century’s most significant medical advances. The technique has transformed leukemia and related cancers into highly treatable diseases with survival rates as high as 90 percent.
For this visionary work, Thomas received numerous awards, including the 1990 Presidential Medal of Science and the 1990 Nobel Prize in medicine.
Sharp as a tack at 87, Thomas continues his work, coming in three days a week to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Despite being officially "retired" he remains deeply involved in the research, and also gives the occasional lecture.
Thanks to Thomas and his team of pioneering scientists, tens of thousands of leukemia patients now lead productive lives. "Every five years, we bring back all of the patients who have survived," said Thomas. "Seeing them is the biggest reward."
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