ABOUT THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Editor-in-Chief
Vincent T DeVita, Jr, MD
Vincent T DeVita, Jr, MD
Vincent T DeVita, Jr earned his BSc at the College of William and Mary in 1957 and his MD degree with distinction at George Washington University School of Medicine in 1961. He went on to an Internship in Medicine at University of Michigan and a Residency in Medicine at GW University, before joining the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1963. In 1965 he left the NCI to complete advanced medical training at Yale New Haven Medical Center, before returning to the NCI in 1966. From 1966 to 1974, he served as Senior Investigator, Chief of the Solid Tumour Service and Chief of Medicine at the NCI. While at NCI, Dr DeVita was also Associate Professor of Medine (1971–1975) and then served as Professor of Medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine (1975–1988).
Later appointments at the NCI (1974–1980) included, Clinical Director and Director of the Division of Cancer Treatment. In 1980, he was appointed by the President, as Director of the NCI and the National Cancer Program. In 1988 he became Physician-in-Chief and Benno C Schmidt Chair in Clinical Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Professor of Medicine at Cornell University (1988–1993), and in 1993 assumed the Directorship of the Yale Cancer Center (1993–2003). In 2000, Dr DeVita was appointed Chair of the National Cancer Legislative Advisory Committee by Senator Dianne Feinstein. This committee worked closely with the National Dialogue on Cancer, which recommended revisions that could be made to the National Cancer Act of 1971.
Dr DeVita is the first appointee to the post of 'The Amy and Joseph Perella Professor of Medicine' at Yale University, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to cancer research and treatment. He is Chairman of the Yale Cancer Center Advisory Board, and Professor of Internal Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University School of Medicine.
Along with colleagues at the NCI, Dr DeVita was instrumental in developing combination chemotherapy programs such as the four-drug combination known by the acronym MOPP, which led to the effective regimen of potentially curative chemotherapy for Hodgkin's disease and diffuse large-cell lymphomas. Dr DeVita and his colleagues played a major role in developing similar treatments for other lymphomas and for ovarian and breast cancers.
Dr DeVita has been recognized with numerous international awards for his contributions to cancer care. These range from the 1972 Albert and Mary Lasker Medical Research Award for his contribution to the cure of Hodgkin's disease, to his election in 2002 to the European Academy of Sciences for his outstanding and ongoing contribution to cancer research and medical education.
Dr DeVita serves on the editorial boards of numerous scientific journals and is an author of more than 450 articles. He is one of the three editors of Cancer: Principles and Practice of Oncology (a comprehensive textbook in the field of cancer medicine) and Progress in Oncology.
