Happy birthday to Dr. Jane Cooke Wright!
Left: Dr. Wright in 1967.
Middle: Dr. Wright using a microscope, unknown date.
Right: Dr. Wright in 2011 with the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
Jane is remembered for her achievements in oncology. She worked with her father, who was also a doctor, on using folic acid antagonists as a viable treatment to stop tumor growth. She also found that a medication called methotrexate made chemotherapy a less life-threatening treatment option. And she invented a catheter that allowed doctors to get tumor-fighting drugs to areas of the body that were previously unreachable, including the kidneys and the spleen.
Jane was raised in a family of pioneering doctors: her grandfather was born into slavery and became a doctor after the Civil War, her step-grandfather was the first black person to graduate from Yale Medical college, and her father was the first black doctor in a New York City hospital. Jane had two daughters, one who became a psychiatrist and the other who became a clinical psychologist.
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Watch: (Pharmacology video on "Methotrexate," the medication that improved chemotherapy)
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