International Women's Day - March 8

International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the achievements of women. Lymphoma Action want to recognise Dr Jane C Wright, whose work transformed chemotherapy into an effective blood cancer treatment.

Jane Wright was born in Manhatten in 1919, a year before women in America could vote. Her father, Louis Wright, was one of the first African Americans to graduate from Harvard Medical School and became the first African American doctor to work at a public hospital in New York City. Louis’ father had been born into slavery, but had also graduated from medical school. 

Jane completed a degree in art in 1942, and received a scholarship to attend the New York Medical College, graduating in 1945. 

In 1949 Jane joined her father at the Cancer Research Foundation at Harlem Hospital. In the 1940s, chemotherapy was a new development, still in its experimental stage of drug development. Over the next decade she and her father worked on making chemotherapy a method of cancer treatment. 

Jane and her father introduced nitrogen mustard agents and folic acid as a cancer treatment. With the help of her team, Jane was the first to identify and develop methotrexate (an immunosuppressant which slows down the body’s immune system and helps reduce swelling) for use in a range of solid tumours. Methotrexate is still used to treat lymphoma and many other types of cancer. 

Jane was also instrumental in the development of combination chemotherapy, using multiple chemotherapy drugs in varying doses and sequences. 

In 1964, Dr Jane Wright was the only woman co-founder of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Dr Jane C Wright (1919-2013) - a truly pioneering woman.