Carbone Foundation Supports Legacy Project

Dr. Paul Carbone

Paul Carbone’s lifetime contributions helped set the standards for clinical oncology and research, as well as for patient care. Upon his death in 2002, family and friends established the Paul P. Carbone Memorial Foundation to memorialize the internationally acclaimed medical oncologist who in 1972 shared the Lasker Prize for Medicine - considered America’s Nobel Prize - and who presided over two of the most prestigious cancer research societies in the United States: the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Association for Cancer Research.

Dr. Carbone began his career at the National Cancer Institute in 1960, as part of the original team working on the development of cancer chemotherapy. He participated in early studies of the treatment of Burkitt lymphoma, one of the first tumors shown to be curable by chemotherapy, in Uganda with Denis Burkitt. In 1971, Dr. Carbone joined the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG), and over the next 20 years built it into a premier national clinical trials organization, pioneering research on a number of fronts and providing sustained leadership at the international level.

But it was in America’s heartland - at the University of Wisconsin - where Dr. Carbone’s influence was most keenly felt. As director of Wisconsin’s comprehensive cancer center for nearly two decades, Dr. Carbone distinguished himself as a scientist, teacher and humanitarian.

"He committed the better part of his life to the fundamental research of cancer," says his eldest son, Paul, a managing partner at Robert W. Baird & Co. and a trustee of the Carbone Memorial Foundation, "and he was known for his outstanding patient care. He put both together in his work at Wisconsin, and his patients loved him because he had a remarkable bedside manner that touched and comforted people."

The Foundation has focused its fundraising efforts on Wisconsin’s Carbone Legacy Campaign, which seeks to raise $10 million to expand and rename the comprehensive cancer center as a tribute to Dr Carbone. The University of Wisconsin Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center will be part of a new Interdisciplinary Research Complex within the University of Wisconsin Health Sciences campus.

"This is the centerpiece of what the foundation is trying to accomplish, since my dad spent the last half of his career there," says son David. Over $9.5 million has been raised in private funds for the comprehensive cancer center expansion so far. The University has secured an additional $14 million in federal money given in Dr. Carbone’s honor.

David Carbone, an oncologist at Vanderbilt University specializing in lung cancer and a Foundation trustee, says different people remember his father for different things.

"He’s known objectively as a member of the team that developed some of the first effective chemotherapies for lymphomas at NCI," says David. "Among those in the medical profession, he is most respected for his interest in oncology training and the way he helped guide junior physicians in oncology. After his retirement, he set up fellowship programs in Taiwan and Singapore. He really liked doing that. From talking with other physicians, I believe he made the biggest impact by helping people professionally, and by systemizing and codifying the practice of oncology into a standardized, evidence-based, careful and thoughtful approach. He was quite proud of the fact that he developed the oncology certification exam."

The foundation of modern oncology is still very much relevant. When David was diagnosed with large cell lymphoma in 2000, he was treated with virtually the same four-course regimen that his father had developed at NCI.

"One of these drugs has a numbing/tingling side effect," David says. "When I asked him about it, my dad pulled out the original paper he had authored 40 years earlier, discussing the safety of the drug. When investigators at NCI found that certain cancers could be cured, it was a major leap forward and became a founding principle in the field."

A celebration of the renaming of The University of Wisconsin Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center will be held on September 26, 2006, at the Overture for the Arts Center in Madison. For additional information, or to make a contribution, contact Andrea Engebretson at 608-263-0852 or andrea.engebretson@uwfoundation.wisc.edu.

Marcia Landskroener for INCTR