MD Anderson scientist ‘ahead of his time’
Dr. Waun Ki Hong, an MD Anderson Cancer Center physicianscientist whose pioneering research broke ground in three major fields, died last week. He was 76.
Hong, who retired from MD Anderson in 2014 but continued to serve the institution as an adviser on a variety of programs that nurtured the careers of young scientists, showed treatment didn’t have to destroy organs, pills could be enlisted to prevent cancer and tumors could be precisely targeted, all new ideas at the time.
“Waun Ki Hong’s brilliant clinical research and mentorship of hundreds of clinicians have extended the lives and improved the quality of life of cancer patients everywhere,” Dr. Peter Pisters, president of MD Anderson, said in a statement. “He’ll be greatly missed, but he leaves a powerful, farreaching legacy personally and professionally.”
Hong died unexpectedly Wednesday in Newport Beach, Calif., following a short illness.
Former colleagues hailed Hong as patient-centric, uniformly respected and a role model who inspired co-workers.
“He was really ahead of his time, a doctor and researcher that bridged the gap between the lab and clinic,” said Dr. Roy Herbst, a professor of medical oncology at Yale Cancer Center who worked under Hong at MD Anderson. “He truly changed the way we look at and treat cancer.”
Dr. Patrick Hwu, who succeeded Hong as head of cancer medicine at MD Anderson, said Hong’s most important quality was “his selfless mentorship of so many, the way he helped people without expecting anything in return.” Hwu described Hong as like “a father to me.”
In addition, a number of clinical trials Hong designed and conducted changed medical practice. In the early 1980s, for instance, he led a landmark trial demonstrating that patients with laryngeal cancer fared just as well when treated with chemo-
therapy and radiation as those who underwent surgery to remove the larynx, which robbed them of their ability to speak. The finding inspired follow-up research that showed similar organ-sparing benefits in other cancers.
He also conducted a clinical trial that established that oral cancers could be prevented by treating precancerous lesions, which earned him the reputation as the father of chemoprevention. The trial jumpstarted the field and led to the use of drugs such as tamoxifen and raloxifene to prevent breast cancer.
“I have always been passionate about chemoprevention because the benefits of success would be so high,’ Hong said in a 2018 interview with OncLive, an online cancer publication. “For all the progress we have made, metastatic cancer is still a terrible thing that kills most patients.”
Hong’s third major influence involved matching patient treatments to molecular targets identified in biopsies, a then-new approach whose feasibility was doubted by funding agencies. Hong was able to secure funding and led a trial — it “seemed like science fiction” at the time, he told OncLive — that would become a standard for further research. The approach is now routine for lung and other cancer types.
Hong was born in South Korea on Aug. 13, 1942. The sixth of seven children, he became interested in medicine as a small child, after surgery successfully treated a life-threatening buildup of infected fluid in his abdomen.
After finishing medical school, Hong served three years as a flight surgeon in the South Korean Air Force during the Vietnam War. In 1970, with $300 to his name and speaking only broken English, he came to the U.S., where he did an internship at Bronx/Lebanon Hospital in New York City, then a residency at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Boston. He went to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York for his fellowship before returning to the Boston VA as chief of medical oncology.
Hong joined MD Anderson in 1984 as section chief in head and neck medical oncology. He headed the division of cancer medicine from 2001 to 2014.
Hong was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2013 and was awarded the American Cancer Society’s Medal of Honor in 2012. He also served as a president of the American Association for Cancer Research and was on the board of directors of the American Society for Clinical Oncology. In 2016, the association established the Waun Ki Hong Award for outstanding achievement in translational and clinical cancer research in recognition of his “extraordinary contributions to cancer research, care and prevention.”
Hong was also widely consulted. In 2008, President George W. Bush appointed him to the President’s Cancer Panel, a three-member committee that advised the White House, and he also served in a variety of advisory capacities for the National Cancer Institute, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other cancer centers and organizations.
Hong is survived by his wife, Mi Hwa; his two sons, Edward and Burton; and four grandchildren. Memorial services will be held in California on Saturday.