Breast cancer research loses a major leader

Is it me or does anyone else feel like Terra Sigillata is becoming ScienceBlogs.com-version of the obituaries section of your local newspaper?

This just in from the NCI Cancer Bulletin:

Dr. Robert B. Dickson Dies at 54
Former NCI investigator Dr. Robert B. Dickson died on June 24, in Kensington, Md., at the age of 54. He was considered one of the world's leading researchers in breast cancer.

Dr. Dickson began his career in 1980 in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of NCI's Center for Cancer Research (CCR), where he was the first scientist to discover the link between estrogen and breast cancer tumors. He joined the faculty of Georgetown University in 1988. Dr. Dickson was named the vice chairman of Georgetown's Department of Oncology in 1999. In 2001, he was appointed co-director of the Breast Cancer Program at the university's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Ira Pastan, chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, CCR, said, "We all know about Bob Dickson's outstanding contributions to breast cancer research. These are in textbooks and will have a lasting impact on the field. What his friends remember is his friendship, his good humor, his good character, and his positive attitude to life."

Dr. Dickson is survived by his parents, wife, and daughter.

Anyone who knows the breast cancer leader, Marc E. Lippman, MD, now at the University of Michigan, will recongize Bob Dickson as the basic science driving force behind Lippman's program when he was at NIH and Georgetown. A former Lippman postdoc I know well credits her success to the mentoring of Bob Dickson.

I only had the pleasure of meeting Dr Dickson in 1992 at The Endocrine Society meeting in San Antonio. Sure, I know his science, but what I remember most was that he was a warm and gracious man.