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Custom-made cancer care
May/June 2009
by Bruce Fellman
Thomas J. Lynch Jr. '82, '86MD, who last month became
the director of the Yale Cancer Center, was born to his career. "My father, a
hematologist, was one of the first cancer doctors in the country," says Lynch.
"I had a built-in bias towards going into oncology." Moreover, the period when
he was studying at Yale was an especially exciting time. "Some of the major
breakthroughs in cancer biology were just beginning, particularly the role
genes were playing in malignancy."
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"It's about getting the right drugs to the right patient."
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After graduation, Lynch and his wife, education
writer Laura Pappano '84, moved to Boston, where he joined the staff of the
Massachusetts General Hospital and taught at Harvard Medical School. As both
clinician and researcher, he specialized in the treatment of lung cancer and
pioneered what he calls personalized treatment. It begins with the creation of
a molecular profile of a tumor, after which the medical team can select the
best combination of drugs for the individual, rather than use a one-size-fits-all
approach. "It's about getting the right drugs to the right patient," he says.
"This is absolutely the future of cancer medicine."
After a 23-year tenure at Mass General, Lynch found
two reasons to return to Yale: the Smilow Cancer Hospital, scheduled to open in
October, and the cancer research facilities under development at the West
Campus. "I wouldn't have come for either one alone," he says. "But what excited
me was that together, they give us a chance to really rethink how we do cancer
medicine." 
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