Abstract
AT the end of the present academic year, Prof. E. L. Kennaway will retire from the directorship of the Chester Beauty Research Institute of the Royal Cancer Hospital and from the chair of experimental pathology in the University of London which he has held since 1931. Prof. Kennaway and his colleagues have Studied the problem of carcinogenesis for more than twenty years and have made outstanding contributions to the problem of cancer. The pioneer work of W. V. Mayneord and I. Hieger at the Royal Cancer Hospital upon the fluorescence spectrum of coal tar led to the discovery of the first known organic carcinogenic compound, 1 : 2 : 5 : 6-dibenzanthracene, and to the isolation from tar of the more rapidly acting compound 3 : 4-benzpyrene, which was identified afterwards by J. W. Cook and C. L. Hewett. The team of workers at the Royal Cancer Hospital, being the first to produce cancer in animals with pure substances of known chemical structure, continued to take the lead in this field of research, and now about three hundred carcinogenic substances are known. The careful and extensive researches have revealed correlations between chemical structure and carcinogenic action. The knowledge obtained has been used and followed up by research workers in all parts of the world. In collaboration with Mrs. Kennaway, Prof. Kennaway has also investigated the distribution of cancer in men of different races, social classes and occupations. His work has been recognized by the award of the Baly Medal of the Royal College of Physicians (1937), the Walker Prize of the Royal College of Surgeons, the Anna Fuller Memorial Prize (with the other workers named above, in 1939), and a Royal Medal of the Royal Society (1941). Although he is relinquishing the directorship of the Institute for which he has done so much, students of the cancer problem hope that he will not entirely abandon the problems of cancer.
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Chester Beatty Research Institute : Retirement of Prof. E. L. Kennaway, F.R.S. Nature 158, 51 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/158051a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/158051a0