Showing 11 results

Authority record
Houston (Tex.) Oncology

Hayes, Teresa

  • http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2014189446
  • Person
  • 1953-

Teresa Gray Hayes, MD, Ph.D. is an oncologist and an associate professor in hematology and oncology at Baylor College of Medicine. She earned both a Ph.D. and an MD from New York University School of Medicine, in 1981 and 1982, respectively

Benyesh-Melnick, Matilda

  • http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2014191262
  • Person
  • 1926-2020

Matilda Benyesh-Melnick, MD, was born on February 7, 1926 in Russe, Bulgaria. She earned her medical degree from Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School in 1952. She moved to Houston with her husband, Dr. Joseph L. Melnick, in 1958. In 1976 she began her residency in psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. At Baylor College of Medicine she held professorships in both the Department of Virology and Epidemiology as well as the Department of Psychiatry. She worked closely with her husband on his research on poliomyelitis as well as conducting her own research in myoplasma and it's relationship with cancer development in certain animals. Dr. Benyesh-Melnick died July 19, 2020, in Houston.

Taylor, H. Grant

  • http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2019073155
  • Person
  • 1903-1995

Harvey Grant Taylor was born in San Francisco, California, on July 22, 1903, to Stella May (Benson) and Benjamin Rush Taylor. When he was five, his family moved to the Canadian wilderness near Calgary. His formal schooling did not begin until the family returned to California when he was twelve. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from San Jose State College in 1928 and a Master of Arts in education from Stanford in 1929. While pursuing a doctorate in psychology at Stanford, he enrolled at Duke University School of Medicine, completed his studies in just over three years, and obtained his medical degree in 1939. He interned at Duke Hospital 1939-1940, was an assistant resident there 1940-1941, and served as a pediatric resident and assistant in research in pathology at Alfred I. DuPont Institute 1941-1942. He met married Martha Worth "Pat" Rogers in Atlanta, Georgia in 1942; they had two sons. Taylor served in the Army Medical Corps for which he received a Bronze Star and a battlefield promotion for his work under fire in Okinawa. After the war, Lt. Colonel Taylor returned to Duke as Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Assistant Professor of Bacteriology, and Assistant Dean of the School of Medicine 1946-1947, and Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Professor and Associate Dean there 1947-1949. He returned to Japan between 1949 and 1951 as Deputy Medical Director for Research with the ABCC and as a consultant for the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board in Korea. He served as Director of the ABCC from 1952 to 1954.

Dr. Taylor’s forty-one-year association with MD Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas, began in 1954. He became MDAH’s first chief of the Section of Pediatrics, and he organized and headed the UT Postgraduate School of Medicine in Houston, which became the UT Health Science Center’s Division of Continuing Education. He retired in 1975 but continued his affiliation with MDAH and the Division of Continuing Education. In 1977, he was named Emeritus Director of Continuing Education at the UT Health Science Center. In 1985, he was named Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at MDAH where his program of care that addressed the social, emotional, and medical needs of pediatric cancer patients formed the foundation for MDAH’s current system of pediatric therapy that integrates medical care and normal childhood development. When he was 87 he implemented an aluminum recycling program at MDAH that continues to generate thousands of research dollars annually.

Dr. Taylor’s ABCC experiences convinced him that teamwork and collaboration were necessary to obtain maximum benefit from medical research and education. He acknowledged parents’ heroic magnanimity and contributions as research partners when they granted permission to use experimental drugs that they were aware could not improve the condition of their child., "but if you can learn something that might help somebody else, go ahead and do it." In the late 1950s, his belief in cooperative research led Dr. Taylor to organize the first collaborative research group in the southwestern region of the U. S., the Southwest Cancer Chemotherapy Study Group, known today as the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG as of 2010).

Dr. Taylor authored scores of articles for medical journals, reports for the ABCC, chapters for medical texts, and editorials throughout his career. In 1990 he published Pioneers in Pediatric Oncology, a collection of autobiographies of thirty-nine of the major contributors to the remarkable progress in this discipline. In 1991 he published Remembrances & Reflections, an autobiography edited by N. Don Macon and John P. McGovern, M.D. He received recognition for his humanitarian achievements through the years. In 1969 he received a special award from the Leukemia Society, in 1973 a $1,000 award from the Center for Interaction, a private Houston foundation, and a certificate of appreciation from the Regional Medical Program of Texas and Texas Regional Medical Program, Inc. He was given honorary Emeritus membership on the Pediatric Executive Committee of the Southwest Oncology Group in 1974 and the American School Health Association Award in 1975. In June and August 1975 tributes were organized in his honor by the UT System and the Harris County Medical Society, respectively. The annual Grant Taylor Lectureship was established by the UT Health Science Center in 1981. Among other honors, he was also given Life Membership in the DeMolay Legion of Honor and, in 1986, the Sidney Kaliski Award from the Texas Pediatric Society, a chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.Dr. Taylor died September 19, 1995. He has an entry in the Handbook of Texas Online.

Clark, Randolph Lee, 1906-

  • http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50039822
  • Person
  • 1906-1994

Randolph Lee Clark was born July 2, 1906 to Randolph Lee Clark, Sr., teacher and president of several Texas colleges including Texas Christian University, and Leni Leoti Sypert, musician and teacher. As the son and grandson of college presidents, he lived with role models whose optimistic outlook and ideals nurtured his untiring ability to work toward the goal of containing and possibly curing cancer. After his father’s death, he preferred to be known as R. Lee Clark.

Dr. Clark’s early medical career as Chief Resident at the American Hospital in Paris and as a Fellow at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota laid the foundation for concepts that became the cornerstone of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. His military service enabled him to meet surgeons and physicians from throughout the United States and to exchange ideas and plans for postwar institutions. He was appointed Director of Surgical Research for the U.S. Army (Air) Medical Corps as well as Consultant to the Air Surgeon General. Clark’s successes were recognized by the Regents of the University of Texas and in 1946 he was asked to develop what would become the nation’s first cancer hospital within a university system.

In Houston, he started work with 22 employees in the house and stables cum carriage-house of a donated family estate. The stables housed research laboratories for biochemistry and biology. Dr. Clark located surplus Army barracks, had them moved to the estate grounds, and converted them to a clinic. During this time, employees, including some ex-military associates, were recruited to expand M.D. Anderson Hospital. A story then circulating told of one employee asking another if he had noticed how ‘vague’ Dr. Clark was when discussing salaries, benefits, laboratory space, and other necessities. The second employee replied, “Oh, no, ‘vague’ is much too precise a word.”

Lee Clark had vision, energy, and the ability to inspire the generosity of major businessmen in Houston and citizens throughout Texas. The M.D. Anderson Foundation was also a benefactor. At that time, the Texas Medical Center was expanding and M.D. Anderson Hospital became one of its cornerstones. Dr. Clark collaborated with city, state, and eventually national and international leaders in medicine whose intent was to consider the problem of “incurable” cancer patients and to find a solution.

Clark married Bertha Margaret Davis, MD, an anesthesiologist from Asheville, North Carolina, on June 11, 1932. They had two children, Randolph Lee and Rabia Lynn. Lee Clark died May 3, 1994.

For more information, please consult:

Cancer Bulletin 31, no.2 (1979) : special edition.

“Contemporaries: Randolph Lee Clark, M.D.” Modern Medicine Publications, 30 Oct. 1972, 35-37.

The First Twenty Years, of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute. Houston, TX: U.T. M.D. Anderson Hosptial and Tumor Institute, 1964.

LeMaistre, Charles A, MD. “R. Lee Clark in memoriam.” Cancer, 74, no. 4 (1994) : 1513-15.

Macon, N. Don. Clark and the Anderson: a personal profile. Houston, TX: Texas Medical Center, 1976.

“M.D. Anderson’s R. Lee Clark.” Mayo Alumnus, April 1969, 14-15.

Sutow, Wataru W. (Wataru Walter), 1912-1981

  • http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n80139900
  • Person
  • 1912-1981

Watauru W. Sutow, MD, is known for his work in pediatric oncology and for his pediatric studies with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. Sutow was born August 31, 1912 and died December 20, 1981. Sutow was a pioneer in defining and establishing pediatric oncology as a specialty and chemotheraphy as a viable adjunct or alternative to radiotherapy and surgery for the treatment of cancer. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Sutow directed a pediatric research team for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. He later joined the University of Texas' M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. As a collaborator with the Brookhaven National Labratory, he conducted extensive research on the effects of radiation fallout on Marshall islanders.

Wataru "Wat" Walter Sutow was born August 31, 1912 in Guadalupe, California in the United States of America to Yasaku and Yoshi Sutow. He father was born in Fukushima, Japan, in 1868 and came to the Unites States in 1905. His mother, also of Fukushima, Japan, was born there in 1878, and migrated to the U.S. in 1911.

Wataru Sutow married Mary H. Korenaga in Guadalupe, California, in early September 1937. Mary was born May 28 1914, in Montrose, California. He attended the Stanford University School of Medicine from 1939-1942. As a result of the U.S. government's policy during World War II calling for imprisonment and revocation of civil rights for people of Japanese descent, Sutow was unable to finish his medical studies for most of the war. His family was forcibly relocated to Salt Lake City. He finally was able to complete his medical degree in 1945 at the age of 33. He earned his MD from the University of Utah College of Medicine.

The Sutows had two daughters while they resided in Salt Lake City, Ollie Ellen on October 3, 1942, and Chiyono Jean on September 14, 1946. Sutow completed his internship at Salt Lake City General Hostpital 1945-1946 and residency in the Departmnet of Pediatrics at the University of Utah 1946-1947. He obtained his license to practice medicine from the State of Utah on July 1, 1946; the State of California on September 24, 1947; and from the State of Texas on December 3, 1945.

Following the decision to use atomic weapons against Japan at the end of World War II in August of 1945, the United States government decided to study the immediate and long-term effects of ionized radiation on humans. Sutow was invited to help organize the pediatric portion of the studies by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Sutows left Salt Lake City in 1947 and were in Japan by 1948. During Sutow's first stint with the ABCC, he served as civilian head of the Pediatric Department. On January 16, 1950 they had their third and last child, a son named Edmund Keith who was born at Osaka General Hospital.

In 1950, the Sutow family returned to the United States. Sutow became a fellow at Stanford University where he worked with Dr. John Anderson. As a result of the Korean War, which began in June 1950, Sutow began serving in the U.S. Army in 1951 with the rank of Captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. He received his officer training in San Antonio and was assigned to the Far East Command. In that position, he again worked with the ABCC in 1953-1954 as Director of Pediatric Research doing the same job he earlier had done as a civilan.

Sutow was drawn to the Texas Medical Center through his working relationship with Dr. H. Grant Taylor, a former director of the ABCC. Taylor was the Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of the Section of Pediatrics of the University of Texas (UT) M.D. Anderson Hospital (MDAH) in 1954. Taylor recruited Sutow who joined MDAH pediatrics in 1954. Sutow served as assistant and associate pediatrician and associate professor of pediatrics until 1969 when he became pediatrician and Professor of Pediatrics. He was acting head of the department of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine from 1954-1978. From 1957 on, his association as research collaborator with Brookhaven National Laboratory allowed him to continue and elaborate on his reseawrch on long-term radiation effects including his study of Japanese infants who had experienced in utero exposure to atomic bomb fallout. Aside from the study of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki popultations, he was also involved in the ongoing study of the effects of the exposure of Marshall Islanders to radiation fallout in 1954.

In March 1954, the United States conducted the Castle Bravo shot on the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The Bravo shot was the first code name of the first test of a dry fuel hydrogenn bomb detonated in the atomosphere. Due to unexpected weather patterns, the fallout fell on residents of Rongelap and Utirik atolls in the Marshall Islands. Source: Castle Bravo (April 29, 2015); Wikipedia; retrieved April 30, 2015 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo.

While at MDAH, Sutow organized inter-institutional groups, such as the Southwest Cancer Chemotheraphy Study Group for which he chaired the Pediatric Division 1957-1969. He chaired the Childhood Solid Tumor Committee from 1969-1976. He was a member of the Pediatric Executive Committee of hte Southwest Oncology Group from 1972-1979. He was a member of hte National Wilms' Tumor Study Committee from 1967 and a member of the Executive Committee, Section of Oncology and Hematology, American Academy of Pediatrics, 1975-1978.

When Sutow joined the MDAH Pediatric Section, it consisted of four beds. In Sutow's obituary, which ran in the December 22, 1981 edition of the Houston Post, Dr. Charles A. LeMaistre, president of the UT System Cancer Center, praised Sutow for innovations in treating cancer. "Popular opinion at that time (1954) was skeptical of hte value of drugs in treating cancer, but ... Sutow's regimens for treatment of osteosarcoma (bone cancer) produced some of the most dramatic results ever achieved in pediatric oncology." LeMaistre said. Dr. Jan van Eys stated in the May-June 1982 edition of "The Cancer Bulletin" that Sutow's legacy was that "pediatric oncology addresses the child with cancer, not the cancer in the child ... [Sutow's] ultimate aim was the cured childen, not the cure ... he gave them complete life, not permanent dependency."

In addition to his research and medical practice, Sutow served as an editor or sat on editorial boards for numerous cancer-related publications. He published more than 250 journal articles, contributed to cancer and pediatric textbooks, and published a cancer reference bibliography, a textbook and a book on malignant solid tumor of children.

He was member and a fellow of numerous medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Medical Association and numerous other organizations.

In his personal life, he was an avid conchologist, which is the study of mollusc shells, and a devoted student of philately, which is the study of stamps and postal history.

Fernbach, Donald J.

  • http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n83157715
  • Person
  • 1925-2013

Donald Joseph Fernbach was born April 10, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in the European Theater and earned a Bronze Star during World War II. He earned his Bachelor’s from Tusculum College in Greeneville, Tennessee, in 1948 and his MD from George Washington University School of Medicine in 1952, and came to Houston to study pediatrics as one of Baylor College of Medicine’s first residents. He also completed a residency at Children’s Medical Center and Harvard University School of Medicine in Boston, followed by a fellowship in hematology and oncology. He returned to Houston in 1957 to join the faculty at Baylor and helped found the Research Hematology-Oncology Service (now the Children’s Cancer Center) at Texas Children’s Hospital in 1958.

Dr. Fernbach coauthored the first textbook on clinical pediatric oncology, led the effort to screen for sickle cell disease in newborns, and was the first to transplant bone marrow between identical twins to treat aplastic anemia. He was the director of the Blood Transfusion Services at Texas Children’s from 1957 to 1971. He was one of the founders of Houston’s Ronald McDonald House and led the movement to ban smoking in the Texas Medical Center.

Dr. Fernbach died September 22, 2013, in Houston and is buried at the Houston National Cemetery.

Copeland, Murray M.

  • http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2018054171
  • Person
  • 1902-1982

Murray Marcus Copeland was born June 23, 1902, in Georgia, and died April 2, 1982, in Easton, Texas, although he lived in Houston at the time. Copeland was a professor of surgery at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center from 1960 to 1982. He had been chair of Georgetown University’s medical school from 1947 to 1960 and was president of the American Cancer Society from 1964 to 1965. Dr. Copeland graduated from Oglethorpe University in 1923 and earned his MD from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1927. He also trained in surgery at the Mayo Clinic Memorial Hospital for Cancer in New York City. He served in medical corps in the Pacific Theater during World War II and was awarded a Legion of Merit. Copeland has an entry in the Handbook of Texas Online.

Moore, John T.

  • Person
  • 1864-1951

John T. Moore, MD, was the first man in the United States “to use radium as part of an operation in the treatment of cancer, he was one of the pioneers in clinical research,” according to an obituary that appeared in the Houston Post, section 1, page 6 on March 20, 1951. Dr. Moore was born in Moore’s Grove. He attended Sam Houston Normal Institute. He was educator before studying medicine. He was superintendent of schools in Trinity, Texas and then Orange, Texas. Dr. Moore received his master’s degree from Texas Christian University and his medical degree from the University of Texas School of Medicine at Galveston. He did graduate work at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Vienna. He was a former president of the Harris County Medical Society. He was a member of the Texas Surgical Society and other medical organizations. Dr. Moore was one of the organizers of the Texas State Medical Society.

Dr. Moore was born September 4, 1864 and died March 1, 1951.

Dmochowski, Leon

  • Person
  • 1909-1981

Leon Dmochowski was a virologist, experimental oncologist, and academic born on July 1, 1909 in Ternopil (Ukraine; at that time Austrian crown land of Galicia). He died on August 26, 1981 in Mexico City and was buried in Houston, Texas.

Dmochowski attended the Ukrainian Grammar School for Boys in Peremyshl, and in 1928-33 he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lviv, where he gained a bachelor's degree. In 1934-35 he worked as a general practitioner at the Lviv university clinic. He subsequently obtained a grant from the J. Potocki Foundation for Scientific Investigation of Cancer and Tuberculosis and moved to Warsaw where, from 1935 to 1938, he was a research assistant in the cancer laboratoryy of the Polish State Institute of Hygiene, Department of Bacteriology and experimental Medicine. In 1973 he gained a Doctor of Medicine degree from Warsaw University.

Obtaining a one-year traveling fellowship from the Potocki Foundation, in 1938 he came to the United Kingdom where, unti l1946, he conducted research at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK). During this period he published five papers in the British Medical Journal, the British Journal of Experimental Pathology, the British Journal of Cancer and the Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology. in 1946 he moved to Leeds, where he worked as a researcher and lecturer in the Department of Experimental Pathology and Cancer Reasearch at the School of Medicine, University of Leeds. He also lectured in microbiology. In 1949 he obtained a second doctorate from Leeds University, and in 1950 was promoted to the position of reader at the university. In this period he published a further 24 papers in The Lancet (1947), Nature (1947, 1948, 1950, 1951) and other journals (Advances in Cancer Research, British Medical journal, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Acta-Unio Internationalis Contra Cancrum, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences). In 1951, he was invited to give a series of lectures on oncology at a number of universities in the USA. in 1953-54 he was a visiting associate professor of microbiology at the Colombia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. From 1949 to 1955 he was an adviser to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). He was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the British Society of General Microbiology, and the Pathological Society oof Great Britain and Ireland.

Deciding to settle in the USA, in 1954 Dmochowski moved from New York to Houston, where in 1954-55 he was a professor of anatomy at the Baylor University of College of Medicine, and a consultant at the M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute (now University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center). He continued to work at M.D. Anderson where he was chief of the Section of Virology and Electron Microscopy (1955-65), acting head of the newly-established Department of Virology (1965-66), and, from 1966, professor and head of the Department of Virology. From 1955 he was also professor ofexperimental pathology at the University of Texas Postgraduate School of Medicine, and, from 1965, professor of virology at the new University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Additionally, he was a clinical professor at the Baylor University College of Medicine (from 1955), and a distinguished lecturer at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta (1966). After 1974 he continued with his academic and research work at M.D. Anderson. His main academic interests included virology, experimental oncology, immunology and serology of tumors, endocrinology, and electron microscopy in cancer diagnosis. He was the author or co-author of over 450 articles and papers, as well as chapters in several books. He was at the forefront of research into the role of viruses in oncology, one of the first researchers to report the viral origins of various malignant tumors (1953), and a pioneer in the application of electron microscopy in oncovirology. He also discovered viruses which cause leucosis in rodents and demonstrated the presence of such viruses in human beings.

Dmochowski was a member of the Ukrainian Physicians' Society in Lviv and the Ukrainian Medical Association of North America, and (from 1959) a full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in the US. He was also a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the Electron Microscopy Society of America, the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, the American Society for Microbiology, the New York Academy of Sciences, the Leukemia Society of America (National Board of Trustees, 1966-; National Medical and Scientific Advisory Board, 1966-1970), and the Pan American Cancer Cytology Society. He was an honorary member of the Chilean Society of Cancerology.

Source: Kovaliv, Yuriy B. (20 June 2014). Leon Dmochowski. Ukrainians in the United Kingdom. Retrieved from http://www.ukrainiansintheuk.info/eng/02/dmochowski-e.htm

Hickey, Robert

  • Person
  • 1915-2006

Dr. Robert Cornelius Hickey was born December 9, 1915 in Hallstead, Pennsylvania. He received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1938 and his MD, also from Cornell University, in 1942. After graduating, he went to University of Iowa, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the National Cancer Institute for advanced training in both radiology and surgery. He worked in University of Iowa College of Medicine, M.D Anderson, University of Wisconsin Medical School, and the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons. He developed several techniques for treating patients with various endocrine tumors.

Dr. Hickey died May 17, 2006, in Madison, Wisconsin.

Haas, Felix L.

  • Person
  • 1917-

Dr. Felix Levere Haas was born on October 26, 1917 in Alvin, Texas, the oldest son of three children. The Alvin native entered the University of Texas at Austin in 1939. His studies were interrupted with the onset of World War II. Haas en listed in the United States Army Air Corps. He received aviation training from January 5, 1942 - September 5, 1942. As a navigator he led numerous combat missions with the 13th Air Force over the South Pacific. He served until February 22, 1946 and was promoted to the rank of Captain.
In June of 1947, Haas received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Genetics and Bacteriology from U.T. He was awarded the Rosalie B. Hite Predoctoral Fellowship and continued to study for his Masters of Arts. Drs. Wilson S. Stone and Orville Wyss were pleased to have Haas as their research fellow. While experimenting he made an important discovery in the genetics of micro-organisms. He found that irradiation of the growth medium resulted in genetic mutations in bacteria when they were grown in it. In short, a biochemical basis must be present to produce mutations.
Felix Haas continued his research earning his M.A. in August of 1948. That same year he met Cathryn E. Swausch, Dr. Wyss' laboratory assistant. They worked closely together for the next two years and were married on January 21, 1950. By June, Dr. Haas received his doctorate in Biochemistry and Biology.
The Haas couple left the University of Texas at Austin for the California Institute of Technology, where Dr. Haas accepted a one year (1950-1951) postdoctoral fellowship in Genetics from the Eli Lilly Company. At the Institute he worked with Drs. George Beadle and Herschell Mitchell. The following year he was awarded a USPHS Postdoctoral Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. With the outbreak of the Korean War Dr. Haas was recalled to active military duty. As a result he had to decline the fellowship.
Upon his return to Texas, Dr. Wilson Stone arranged for him an indefinite delay in the re-activation orders. He also made it possible for Dr. Haas to work as a research scientist for the Atomic Energy Commission. He conducted his research on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin and the Old Baker Estate in Houston (M.D. Anderson Hospital). Professor Stone and Dr. Haas worked closely until March of 1953.
The Bristol Laboratories Inc. of Syracuse, New York offered him the position of Senior Microbiologist. In his three years (1953-1956) with Bristol Laboratories he directed research on: improving by genetic mutations mold strains (Penicillium) used for the commercial production of penicillin; developing the Actinomycete strains which led to the production of tetracycline by fermentation (this production method and strain are currently responsible for the largest part of the world's supply of tetracycline). Dr. Haas also taught graduate students at the University of Syracuse. As an Associate Professor of Genetics he taught Genetics and Radiation Biology.
Dr. and Mrs. Haas and their three young sons left Syracuse, New York in May of 1956 and returned to Houston. The M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute appointed him head of the Department of Biology (1956-1975). His responsibilities included recruitment of faculty, formulating research and teaching policies, long-range planning and investigating funding sources.
From 1973 to 1975 Dr. Haas also served as Assistant to the Director of Research at M.D. Anderson Hospital.
Dr. Haas resigned as head of the Department of Biology in 1975 to assume the full duties of coordinating the research program of the hospital. He supervised and directed the Office of Research and served as advisor to the director and president on all matters concerning research at M.D. Anderson Hospital. In 1979 he accepted the position of staff assistant to the president.
On approval of the Board of Regents, the request for establishment of the UT GSBS was presented to the Texas Legislature, and was passed in Spring 1963. Governor John Connally signed the bill into law on June 10, 1963. By action of the Board of Regents the authorized school was established on September 28,1963.
Dr. Haas was a key figure in the founding of UT GSBS at Houston. He served as an important member of many special and standing GSBS Committees.
Between UT SCC, M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute and UT GSBS at Houston Dr. Haas was an active member of nearly twenty committees. They include: Education; Curriculum; Committee on Graduate Studies; Dean's Administrative Committee; Faculty Classification Committee. Virtually, every year since 1949, Dr. Haas has been a principal participant in national and international symposia and conferences. He has written forty three articles and nineteen abstracts. Dr. Haas lists memberships in the following professional and scientific societies: American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Microbiology, Genetics Society of America, American Academy of Microbiology, American Institute of Biological Sciences, Radiation Research Society, American Association for Cancer Research, American Genetic Association. He has been honored by Phi Theta Kappa, Sigma Xi, listed in Who's Who in the South and Southwest and American Men of Science.
Dr. Felix L. Haas' leadership, knowledge and skill were essential to the success of established and new programs organized by UT SCC, M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute and UT GSBS at Houston. Dr. Haas retired in 1981 to enjoy his love of art, music, and spend time with his wife, Cathryn and their three sons, Michael, Stephen and Larry.