V. Craig Jordan, OBE, PhD
V. Craig Jordan, OBE, PhD, has been recognized by the Endocrine Society as the 2018 Laureate of the Gerald D. Aurbach Award for Outstanding Translational Research. Dr. Jordan is the Dallas/Fort Worth Living Legend Chair of Cancer Research in the Department of Breast Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
‘Father of Tamoxifen’
Dr. Jordan is referred to as the “father of tamoxifen,” for his work in reinventing a failed contraceptive known as ICI 46,474 as a breast cancer treatment. Dr. Jordan developed the strategy of long-term adjuvant tamoxifen therapy, as well as describing and deciphering the properties of a new group of medicines called selective estrogen receptor modulators. He was the first to discover the preventive abilities of both tamoxifen and the drug raloxifene. Both drugs received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for reducing breast cancer incidence in high-risk women.
His Laureate citation reads:
“For the discovery and development of a novel group of medicines called selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) applied to address the treatment and prevention of major diseases in women. Ideally, the SERMs switch off estrogen target tissues in the breast and uterus to prevent cancer and switch on tissues to maintain bone density or lower circulating LDL to prevent coronary heart disease. The discovery that tamoxifen is metabolically activated to 4-hydroxytamoxifen (4-OHT) with a 100-fold increased affinity for the ER became the lead compound for the new SERMs raloxifene, bazedoxifene, and lasofoxifene. Tamoxifen and raloxifene are the pioneering SERMs whose diverse applications in breast cancer treatment and prevention, as well as osteoporosis, have extended countless women’s lives. Each has scientific origins through pharmacologic discoveries in Jordan’s laboratory. Few other mechanisms-specific medicines have such broad applications. This success has stimulated all future applications for selective nuclear receptor modulators in medicine.”
Dr. Jordan has been recognized by ASCO with the American Cancer Society Award and Lecture (2006) and the David A. Karnofsky Award and Lecture (2008). In 2014, Dr. Jordan was named as one of the 50 Oncology Luminaries for his identification of the strategic applications of tamoxifen as treatment for patients with breast cancer. ■
