Murray Shear was an American scientist who worked on cancer research and was a pioneer in the field of Chemotherapy.

Early life and education

Murray Jacob Shear was born on November 7, 1899, in Brooklyn, NY. He developed an early interest in philosophy. While attending the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

for his bachelor's degree (Chemistry, 1922), he became interested in chemical physics research. After receiving his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Columbia University (both in Chemistry) in 1925, Murray Shear took a position as a research chemist in the pediatric research laboratory at the Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn, where he studied the chemistry of rickets. By 1926, Shear had become an administrative officer at the hospital, and in 1931, he held the concurrent position of instructor in pediatrics at the Long Island Medical School. He was also a member of the Columbia faculty from 1923 to 1925.

Scientific career

In 1930, the Public Health Service (PHS) Special Laboratory of Cancer Investigations opened a facility at Harvard Medical School to conduct research on the biology, chemistry, and physics of cancer. The head of the laboratory,

Joseph Schereschewsky Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (pronounced skĕr-ĕs-kūs'kĭ ; 6 May 1831 – 15 October 1906), also known as Joseph Schereschewsky, was the Anglican Bishop of Shanghai, China, from 1877 to 1884. He founded St. John's University, Shanghai, ...

, recruited Shear to be a biochemist. Shear's early research involved the effect of calcium on tumor growth, but, seeking agents to halt the growth of cancer cells, he turned to studies on bacterial toxins. In 1937, President

Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

signed an act establishing the National Cancer Institute (NCI). There followed the consolidation of the PHS facilities and the Harvard laboratory. They moved to the newly built NCI building in Bethesda, Maryland. Shear's research interests included the effect of chemicals on cancer. He investigated how the molecular structure of chemicals relates to cancer growth. In 1938, he discovered that some chemicals may not cause cancer themselves but can promote cancer growth when found in conjunction with other chemicals. He called such cancer-enabling substances "co-carcinogens." During the 1940s, Shear was instrumental in setting up a program to screen chemicals for their effects on cancer cells growing in culture dishes. This program was a precursor of the NCI's large screening programs to identify potential anti-cancer drugs. He described the earliest accounts of cancer chemotherapy in a series of articles in the

Journal of the National Cancer Institute The ''Journal of the National Cancer Institute'' (''JNCI'') is a peer-reviewed medical journal covering research in oncology that was established in August 1940. It is published monthly by Oxford University Press and is edited by Patricia A. Ganz ...

in 1944. With his collaborators at the institute, Shear was able to isolate and purify a bacteria (''Bacillus prodigious'' or Serratia marcescens) effective in causing a hemorrhagic destruction of tumors in mice without fatal effects for the animals.

Legacy

In 1947, Shear became chief biochemist and chairman of the Chemotherapy Section. He was appointed chief of the Laboratory of Chemical Pharmacology in 1951, serving until 1964. From 1964 to 1969, he served as a special adviser to the institute's director until his retirement in 1969. During his career, Shear also served as president of the

American Association for Cancer Research The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is the world's oldest and largest professional association related to cancer research. Based in Philadelphia, the AACR focuses on all aspects of cancer research, including basic, clinical, and t ...

and secretary-general of the

International Union Against Cancer The Union for International Cancer Control (previously named International Union Against Cancer) or UICC is a non-governmental organisation with some 1,180 member organisations in more than 170 countries. UICC was founded in 1933 and is based i ...

. He has been widely regarded as the "Father of Chemotherapy." He was also among the first scientists who detected the relationship of air pollution to cancer. During World War II, Shear was considered to have played an important role in the development of a vaccine for typhus, which at one time was a killer disease among soldiers subjected to the unsanitary conditions of Trench warfare. He died of Parkinson's disease at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda on September 17, 1983.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shear, Murray 1899 births 1983 deaths 20th-century American biochemists City College of New York alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Columbia University faculty Harvard University faculty American people of Ukrainian descent Jewish scientists American biologists Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering National Institutes of Health people Scientists from Brooklyn