Chapter 01: An Interest in Estrogen and an Important Discovery

Chapter 01: An Interest in Estrogen and an Important Discovery

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Description

In this chapter, Dr. Jones talks about the graduate research that brought him to MD Anderson. He sketches the story of how he left the University of California, San Francisco to join MD Anderson to develop a research lab in endocrinology. He describes the research he conducted at on combined therapies for gynecologic diseases. In particular, his research had to do with the long-term impact of DES (diethylstilbestrol -synthetic estrogen) in promoting cancer, the work for which he is best known. He explains how his interest in medicine and oncology developed. He lists the individuals he worked with and describes the state of the field at the time. Next Dr. Jones explains that at MD Anderson he was hired to develop a pioneering model of a department with collaborative research connections supported by clinicians. Dr. Jones explains that the Endocrine Research Program was elevated to a Section, which him as head. He explains the reporting structure.

Identifier

JonesLA_01_20140115_C01

Publication Date

1-15-2014

Publisher

The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

City

Houston, Texas

Topics Covered

The Interview Subject's Story - The Researcher; The Researcher; Joining MD Anderson; Professional Path; Discovery and Success; Understanding Cancer, the History of Science, Cancer Research; Building/Transforming the Institution; Multi-disciplinary Approaches

Transcript

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

All right. And we are recording. I'm Tacey Ann Rosolowski, and today I'm interviewing Dr. Lovell Jones for the Making Cancer History Voices Oral History Project run by the Historical Resources Center at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas. Dr. Jones came to MD Anderson in 1980 to join the faculty of the Department of Gynecology, as it was called then. The department is now called the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine. He retired in August of 2013 and now holds the title of professor emeritus in the Department of Health Disparities Research, which is part of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Science. And of course there were many, many roles in between that, which I'm sure we will touch on. (laughter).

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

Right.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

This interview is taking place in the Historical Resources Center Reading Room on the twenty-first floor of Pickens Tower on the main campus of MD Anderson. And I also wanted to mention that Dr. Jones was interviewed in August of 2012 for the HistoryMakers African American Video Oral History Collection, and to enhance any biographical portrait of Dr. Jones, I suggest that the user look at this very interesting and important video interview. Today I'm conducting the first of two planned interview sessions with Dr. Jones. Today is the 15th of January 2014, and the time is 10:41. So, thank you, Dr. Jones, for participating in this.

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

Thank you. Sure.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

I'm so glad that you are willing to be part of this project.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

So you were about to tell me about your first conversation with R. Lee Clark.

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

Right. Well, let me also say that when I joined the faculty, it was a joint appointment, and it was one of the, I guess, first joint appointments in the Division of Surgery, as it was called then, because it was a move by then Mickey LeMaistre to enhance the research components of the Division of Surgery. And actually, I was one of five individuals that were recruited, and I was the only one of the five that came. My mentor, "Finn" Siiteri, who was on the faculty at University of California, San Francisco and associate director for the Reproductive Endocrinology Center, which was in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, was a good friend and colleague of Dr. LeMaistre when Dr. LeMaistre was at the University of Texas Southwestern. They were colleagues, and Dr. LeMaistre was trying to recruit Dr. Siiteri to create a Department of Molecular Endocrinology and had given him a number of faculty slots to make that happen. Anyway, I came down with Dr. Siiteri and actually looked at a potential move, looked at space, actually came back anonymously and walked throughout the institution without anyone knowing who I was, to give Dr. Siiteri lay of the land. And then we had a second interview. Unfortunately, after the second interview, Dr. Siiteri got sick, attributed his getting sick to coming here-

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Really? Huh.

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

-and turned down the offer. Dr. Bob Hickey [phonetic], Robert Hickey actually tracked me down because, as he said, they were impressed with me in terms of what I had to offer to Dr. Siiteri in terms of developing a program, and asked me if I'd be willing to come to develop a research lab in Gynecological Oncology with a joint appointment in the Department of Biochemistry, and so my initial appointment was in those two departments.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Oh, interesting. Will I derail you too much from your R. Lee Clark story to-

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

No.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Okay. So what was it that you offered Dr. Siiteri that was so compelling to these folks at MD Anderson who were recruiting you?

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

Actually, I worked in helping develop protocols, research protocols. And at the time, there was at least one research person in Gynecological Oncology, Ralph Freedman [Oral History Interview], who was an immunologist. But given the field of gynecology overlapped significantly at the time with endocrinology and the whole idea of developing this molecular endocrinology program was done in discussions with that department, Urology, and one other department. They felt that by having me come and begin to develop this, that it would lead to a change in terms of the research that would take place in the Division of Surgery. And so I spent my early years actually developing research protocols.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And you were focusing on estrogen and breast cancer at the time?

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

Actually, we changed because breast was not a part of Gynecology.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Oh, really?

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

It was in another division, and so the only endocrine-related diseases were uterine, ovarian, and to some extent cervical. So I ended up developing some of the first combined therapies for ovarian cancer. Some are still used today. And endometrial cancer, some are still used as well, and saying the framework for the endocrine relationship in those diseases. So I guess that's what they saw, plus my research, which was both a positive and negative, had to do with the impact of diethylstilbestrol on-the long-term impact of diethylstilbestrol, being exposed during development and the cancers that came out of that. So a lot of my basic research initially was around and a continuation of the role of estrogens, early-exposure estrogens, and causation of cancers, as opposed to estrogens being just promoters of that, they could be both initiators as well as promoters.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

When did you become interested in this question?

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

In graduate school. In fact, I started graduate school with an interest in cardiovascular disease, and that, to a large extent, was generated by my grandmother having a heart attack and subsequently dying from that. So when I enrolled in the graduate school at Berkeley, I began to work with Richard Stroman [phonetic], who was a well-known cardiomuscular researcher. But because of the program I was in, I got exposed to the field of endocrinology. And at the time, Dr. Stroman didn't have a place in his lab, and became good friends with a senior graduate student, Frank Talamantes [phonetic], who was the first Hispanic and Latino in Berkeley in the graduate program in endocrinology. And we became good friends and, therefore, got to meet Howard Burn [phonetic], who eventually became my mentor, along with R_____ Andy [phonetic], who became the director of the Cancer Center there at Berkeley.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Now, this was in the kind of mid to late seventies. I have it that you finished your MA in '75 and your PhD in '77.

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

Right.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And, I mean, the field of endocrinology was really exploding at that time.

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

Right. The idea of identifying the steroid receptor, the mechanisms behind how steroids operated, UC San Francisco and Berkeley-well, Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, and UC San Francisco Medical Center formed the hub of the endocrine research group, and my mentor, Howard Burn, was one of the movers and shakers in moving that forward. In fact, during my early years in his lab is when he became a member of the Academy, and that just boosted the [unclear].

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So when did you begin working on these questions yourself, what year?

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

Starting in 1973, after my first year of taking courses and looking at-and at the time, there had been very little work, in fact, no work-well, very little, some. In fact, Howard had a Japanese individual who came over, Dr. Niburo Takasuki [phonetic]. Dr. Mauri [phonetic], who was Dr. Takasuki's student, had looked at the impact of natural estrogens on the reproductive cycle of rodents, mice, rats, in the early sixties, and actually had predicted and said that exposure of estrogens early in life may lead to some abnormalities. Little did they think of cancer, but abnormalities. And it warned-this is, in fact, one of the first papers published in 1962 on this. So when I came into the lab, the DES exposure in women had just started to become public.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Oh, yeah.

Lovell A. Jones, PhD:

The first paper is around 1968 and then began to really mushroom in the early seventies. And I convinced Howard to do my research. He made the comment, "This is a project I don't give the graduate students, because I don't know how it's going to turn out. If it turns out badly, then you won't have anything to write up, and then you'll have problems getting your degree." And he says-well, we were doing two stages-"We'll have you write it for your master's, and if it doesn't turn out, hmm. And then if it does, then you'll continue on for your PhD. If it doesn't, we'll just change direction. You'll have to spend a little bit more time, but we'll get you to a project that will work and end up giving you the degree." Well, the project exploded because when I was able to demonstrate, and he actually took the data to a number of national, international meetings and actually became part of a monograph for the National Cancer Institute, in that I was able to show that natural estrogens exposure during critical period will lead to tumor development. And so it was not the chemical composition of diethylstilbestrol that was directly leading to the cancers, but the estrogen component of that was leading to it. So that was the first time that someone had really pinpointed that natural estrogens could be initiators as well as promoters. Then we started doing subsequent work with progesterone and showing that it, too, in a lesser extent could lead to tumor development, which led to a paper in New England Journal, that followed right after a report of the use of progesterones to replace diethylstilbestrol to rescue pregnancies. So we wrote this letter to the Journal saying, "Mm, mm, mm, this may also, not to as greater extent, but could also lead to tumors as well." So that's still worth-in fact, I had a news reporter call me up about six months ago, asking me about the data that I generated and the concerns that are still being generated by the use of natural and synthetic hormones in terms of rescuing pregnancies. And also now the biggest issue is in-vitro fertilization, because a lot of the [unclear] is stocked with hormones, and whether or not that lead to subsequent problems in terms of offsprings of in-vitro. So she hasn't gotten back to me, but I pointed her in the direction of a number of papers, and so she's thinking about doing a story on that.

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Chapter 01: An Interest in Estrogen and an Important Discovery

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