| Emil Frei III | |
| Birth Date: | February 21, 1924 |
| Birth Place: | St. Louis, Missouri |
| Death Place: | Oak Park, Illinois |
| Citizenship: | United States |
| Known For: | Cancer research |
| Occupation: | physician |
| Spouse: | Elizabeth Smith (nurse), 1948-1986 (her death) Adoria Brock, 1987-2009 (her death) |
| Children: | 5 |
| Workplaces: | National Cancer Institute MD Anderson Cancer Center Dana–Farber Cancer Institute |
| Alma Mater: | Colgate University Yale School of Medicine |
Emil "Tom" Frei III (February 21, 1924 – April 30, 2013) was an American physician and oncologist. He was the former director and former physician-in-chief of the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also the Richard and Susan Smith Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.[1]
Frei was born in 1924 in St. Louis.[2] His family owned the stained glass manufacturer Emil Frei & Associates. Frei completed an accelerated pre-med Colgate University in 1944 after only 2 years of study[3] and his medical degree from Yale University in 1948.
He interned at Firmin Desloge Hospital, now St. Louis University Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri and served as a physician in the Korean War. He worked at the National Cancer Institute from 1955 to 1965 and the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center from 1965 to 1972; while at M.D. Anderson he was the founding director of the Department of Development Therapeutics, which evolved into the Clinical Research Center. He served as physician-in-chief at the Dana-Farber Institute from 1972 to 1991. He is best known for his work on the treatment of lymphomas and childhood and adult leukemia.[4] His groundbreaking research into then-controversial combination chemotherapy, including the VAMP regimen, earned him many awards.[3] [5]
He coauthored "Cancer Medicine" with Dr. James F. Holland.
Frei was one of the founders of the Acute Leukemia Group B which later evolved into the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB). He served as the group chair for 16 years, from 1956 to 1963, and again from 1981 to 1990.[6]
He coined the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 1981, journal published first issue in 1983 in association with American Society of Clinical Oncology.[7]
In 1972 he received the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award from the Lasker Foundation "for his outstanding contribution in application of the concept of combination chemotherapy for lymphoma and acute adult leukemia."[8] Other awards included the Jeffrey A. Gottlieb Memorial Award (1978); NIH Distinguished Alumni Award (1990); Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1999); Pollin Prize for Pediatric Research (2003); and AARC Lifetime Achievement Award (2004).[9]
Frei died of Parkinson's disease at his home in Oak Park, Illinois on April 30, 2013. He was 89.[2]