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ASTRO Gold Medal Award Recipient
Proceedings of the 52nd Annual ASTRO Meeting
A41
ASTRO Gold Medal Award Recipient David A. Larson M.D. Ph.D., FACR, FASTRO Tribute by Theodore L. Phillips, M.D., FACR, FASTRO It is a great honor to pay tribute to Dr. David A. Larson, recipient of the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s 2010 Gold Medal. Dr. Larson has served the Society in many ways including as president and chairman of the board. He is an outstanding clinician, clinical and laboratory scientist. In conjunction with the Brain Tumor Research Center at UCSF, he became the leader of radiation neuro-oncology nationally. He established the guidelines for radiation oncology participation in CNS radiosurgery. Later he became a pioneer in stereotactic body radiosurgery. He has been a great teacher, a role model and a supportive friend to many in our specialty. Dave was born the second of 5 children in Astoria, Ore., on the mouth of the Columbia River. His father and mother were school teachers. When he was two they moved to El Cerrito, Calif. (right next to Berkeley). Education was strongly emphasized in Dave’s family: of two parents plus five children, there were 7 bachelors degrees, 5 masters degrees, 3 Ph.D.s and 1 M.D., and five who became teachers or professors. Dave went to kindergarten through high school in El Cerrito and then to UC Berkeley where he majored in physics. After graduation he had a Fellowship at Columbia to do graduate studies in Astrophysics. He transferred to the University of Chicago after one year in order to join a well-known particle physics group. He designed a high-energy physics experiment for his Ph.D., involving personnel from the University of Chicago, the National Research Council of Canada and Carleton University in Canada. The experiment took a year to assemble and then was carried out over the next 12 months at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. The results allowed constraints to be placed on theoretical models for the observed distributions of pions detected in the earth’s atmosphere from particles from outer space. Dave then went to Ithaca, N.Y., as a staff member in Cornell’s high-energy physics group. During his time at Cornell he had offices both at Cornell and Harvard as part of a long-standing Cornell-Harvard physics collaboration. There was a wonderful sense of collegiality at Cornell, involving highly respected experimentalists and theoreticians all working long hours for the pure pleasure of doing science. At Cornell he helped build and test new 7-meter long dipole magnets for use in the Cornell electron positron storage ring (CESR), and he built the inner detector for detecting and measuring energy, mass and momentum of the hundreds of simultaneously produced particles when electrons and positrons collide. This outstanding physics background has been brought to bear in Dave’s contributions to radiation oncology, both in the sciences of physics and radiobiology and in the use of his management skills. Deciding to leave Cornell was tough, because it was a gamble. Dave loved physics research. But he was also curious about biology and physiology. He decided to go to the University of Miami (where they had an abbreviated medical school class of 35 students consisting only of highly motivated Ph.D.s). During his final year there he did an elective rotation at Los Alamos where he fell in love with radiotherapy. He was offered an exciting physics job at Los Alamos; A tough decision between physics and medicine, but he chose UCSF for his medical internship, a choice he never regretted, and then went on to the Harvard Joint Center to train with Sam Hellman in radiation oncology. On completing his residency he had offers for a faculty position at five universities and to our benefit selected UCSF. At UCSF he quickly put his high-energy physics background to good use when he recruited several UCSF investigators, including Ted Phillips, Dennis Shrieve, Mike Schell and Clif Ling, to join him in a radiobiology experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, where he determined the role of Auger electrons in BUdR cellular radiosenistization by irradiating Chinese hamster V-79 cells with or without BUdR with monoenergetic electrons just above and just below the K-edge of bromine. Of note, when he was a resident at the Joint Center he had watched physicist Wendell Lutz and neurosurgeon Ken Winston working every evening to develop a thing called linac radiosurgery. When Dave joined UCSF Lutz generously gave him the plans, and UCSF gave him the green light and funds to build a system. He first used it at UCSF in 1988, the third radiosurgery program in the U.S. He treated over one hundred patients before UCSF obtained a Gamma Knife in 1991. What is less known is that when Dave went on sabbatical to the Karolinska Hospital in the early 1990’s, where he honed his Gamma Knife skills, he learned how oncologist Heinrch Blomgren and physicist Ingmar Lax had developed body radiosurgery apparatus and techniques. When he returned to UCSF he developed the first U.S. body radiosurgery program. He treated about one hundred patients with it in the early nineties.
A42
I. J. Radiation Oncology d Biology d Physics
Volume 78, Number 3, Supplement, 2010
Dave had the pleasure of training virtually all UCSF radiation oncologists and neurosurgeons who used the Gamma Knife or Cyberknife for brain or body radiosurgery, and he trained scores of other radiation oncologists, neurosurgeons and physicists from all over the world. He, together with a small number of other now prominent ASTRO members, was largely responsible for the growth of radiosurgery to its very large role today. Dave Larson served ASTRO in many roles and continues to serve as a member of the History Committee. He gave the first ASTRO Refresher Courses on radiosurgery, in 1988 and again in 1989. He also gave ‘‘Adult Brain Tumor’’ Refresher courses at five ASTRO meetings. In the early 1990’s we were heading to a major turf war, with neurosurgeons arguing that only they should do radiosurgery and of course radiation oncologists arguing the opposite. He was appointed to an ASTRO taskforce of radiation oncologists and physicists to determine what radiosurgery was, exactly, and who should do it. Under Dave’s guidance a rational solution to cooperative treatment was found and adopted. He became President-elect of ASTRO in 1999. He then served in the various roles of the President and Chairman of the Board with distinction. During his presidency and Board chairmanship Dave accomplished many important goals including recruitment of a new CEO, development of a new long-range strategic plan and major modernizations of the governance of the Society. Dave’s family often spent entire summers camping and backpacking in the Sierras. His father sometimes worked as a summertime park naturalist for the federal or state park service. Love of the outdoors translated for Dave into scores of backpacking and trekking trips in the U.S. and abroad, and he became an accomplished skier. He has three children: Jeremy (San Francisco businessman), Colin (in law school – just made law review) and Whitney (in first year of law school) and two grandchildren (Annabelle and Maxwell). His partner, Zheng Cao, is an internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano. It has been an honor and a great pleasure to have worked and played with Dave Larson over the past 25 years.
A41
ASTRO Gold Medal Award Recipient David A. Larson M.D. Ph.D., FACR, FASTRO Tribute by Theodore L. Phillips, M.D., FACR, FASTRO It is a great honor to pay tribute to Dr. David A. Larson, recipient of the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s 2010 Gold Medal. Dr. Larson has served the Society in many ways including as president and chairman of the board. He is an outstanding clinician, clinical and laboratory scientist. In conjunction with the Brain Tumor Research Center at UCSF, he became the leader of radiation neuro-oncology nationally. He established the guidelines for radiation oncology participation in CNS radiosurgery. Later he became a pioneer in stereotactic body radiosurgery. He has been a great teacher, a role model and a supportive friend to many in our specialty. Dave was born the second of 5 children in Astoria, Ore., on the mouth of the Columbia River. His father and mother were school teachers. When he was two they moved to El Cerrito, Calif. (right next to Berkeley). Education was strongly emphasized in Dave’s family: of two parents plus five children, there were 7 bachelors degrees, 5 masters degrees, 3 Ph.D.s and 1 M.D., and five who became teachers or professors. Dave went to kindergarten through high school in El Cerrito and then to UC Berkeley where he majored in physics. After graduation he had a Fellowship at Columbia to do graduate studies in Astrophysics. He transferred to the University of Chicago after one year in order to join a well-known particle physics group. He designed a high-energy physics experiment for his Ph.D., involving personnel from the University of Chicago, the National Research Council of Canada and Carleton University in Canada. The experiment took a year to assemble and then was carried out over the next 12 months at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. The results allowed constraints to be placed on theoretical models for the observed distributions of pions detected in the earth’s atmosphere from particles from outer space. Dave then went to Ithaca, N.Y., as a staff member in Cornell’s high-energy physics group. During his time at Cornell he had offices both at Cornell and Harvard as part of a long-standing Cornell-Harvard physics collaboration. There was a wonderful sense of collegiality at Cornell, involving highly respected experimentalists and theoreticians all working long hours for the pure pleasure of doing science. At Cornell he helped build and test new 7-meter long dipole magnets for use in the Cornell electron positron storage ring (CESR), and he built the inner detector for detecting and measuring energy, mass and momentum of the hundreds of simultaneously produced particles when electrons and positrons collide. This outstanding physics background has been brought to bear in Dave’s contributions to radiation oncology, both in the sciences of physics and radiobiology and in the use of his management skills. Deciding to leave Cornell was tough, because it was a gamble. Dave loved physics research. But he was also curious about biology and physiology. He decided to go to the University of Miami (where they had an abbreviated medical school class of 35 students consisting only of highly motivated Ph.D.s). During his final year there he did an elective rotation at Los Alamos where he fell in love with radiotherapy. He was offered an exciting physics job at Los Alamos; A tough decision between physics and medicine, but he chose UCSF for his medical internship, a choice he never regretted, and then went on to the Harvard Joint Center to train with Sam Hellman in radiation oncology. On completing his residency he had offers for a faculty position at five universities and to our benefit selected UCSF. At UCSF he quickly put his high-energy physics background to good use when he recruited several UCSF investigators, including Ted Phillips, Dennis Shrieve, Mike Schell and Clif Ling, to join him in a radiobiology experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, where he determined the role of Auger electrons in BUdR cellular radiosenistization by irradiating Chinese hamster V-79 cells with or without BUdR with monoenergetic electrons just above and just below the K-edge of bromine. Of note, when he was a resident at the Joint Center he had watched physicist Wendell Lutz and neurosurgeon Ken Winston working every evening to develop a thing called linac radiosurgery. When Dave joined UCSF Lutz generously gave him the plans, and UCSF gave him the green light and funds to build a system. He first used it at UCSF in 1988, the third radiosurgery program in the U.S. He treated over one hundred patients before UCSF obtained a Gamma Knife in 1991. What is less known is that when Dave went on sabbatical to the Karolinska Hospital in the early 1990’s, where he honed his Gamma Knife skills, he learned how oncologist Heinrch Blomgren and physicist Ingmar Lax had developed body radiosurgery apparatus and techniques. When he returned to UCSF he developed the first U.S. body radiosurgery program. He treated about one hundred patients with it in the early nineties.
A42
I. J. Radiation Oncology d Biology d Physics
Volume 78, Number 3, Supplement, 2010
Dave had the pleasure of training virtually all UCSF radiation oncologists and neurosurgeons who used the Gamma Knife or Cyberknife for brain or body radiosurgery, and he trained scores of other radiation oncologists, neurosurgeons and physicists from all over the world. He, together with a small number of other now prominent ASTRO members, was largely responsible for the growth of radiosurgery to its very large role today. Dave Larson served ASTRO in many roles and continues to serve as a member of the History Committee. He gave the first ASTRO Refresher Courses on radiosurgery, in 1988 and again in 1989. He also gave ‘‘Adult Brain Tumor’’ Refresher courses at five ASTRO meetings. In the early 1990’s we were heading to a major turf war, with neurosurgeons arguing that only they should do radiosurgery and of course radiation oncologists arguing the opposite. He was appointed to an ASTRO taskforce of radiation oncologists and physicists to determine what radiosurgery was, exactly, and who should do it. Under Dave’s guidance a rational solution to cooperative treatment was found and adopted. He became President-elect of ASTRO in 1999. He then served in the various roles of the President and Chairman of the Board with distinction. During his presidency and Board chairmanship Dave accomplished many important goals including recruitment of a new CEO, development of a new long-range strategic plan and major modernizations of the governance of the Society. Dave’s family often spent entire summers camping and backpacking in the Sierras. His father sometimes worked as a summertime park naturalist for the federal or state park service. Love of the outdoors translated for Dave into scores of backpacking and trekking trips in the U.S. and abroad, and he became an accomplished skier. He has three children: Jeremy (San Francisco businessman), Colin (in law school – just made law review) and Whitney (in first year of law school) and two grandchildren (Annabelle and Maxwell). His partner, Zheng Cao, is an internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano. It has been an honor and a great pleasure to have worked and played with Dave Larson over the past 25 years.