UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interview #1356
PITOT, HENRY CLEMENT
PITOT, HENRY CLEMENT (1930 - )
Professor Emeritus of Oncology and of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Director of
McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, 1973-1991.
At UW: 1959- (Emeritus status 1999)
Interviewed:
Interviewer:
Index by:
Length:
September 9; September 11; September 13; September 17, 2013
Molly Laas
Molly Laas
04:21:55
Abstract: In his September 2013 interview, the pathologist and cancer researcher Henry
Clement Pitot addressed his career at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research. He
discussed how he was recruited to the department as well as the men who helped him
become a scientist. He also talked about his McArdle colleagues, including Van Potter,
Harold Rusch, and Jim and Betty Miller. This interview was conducted for inclusion into
the UW-Madison Oral History Program. Pitot discussed his tenure as an administrator,
first as the chair of the pathology department, then as the acting dean of the medical
school and the director of the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research. Pitot offered
details about the difficulties and controversies he faced as head of pathology and dean of
the medical school, and discussed his activities as director of McArdle and his goals for
the department. Pitot continued discussing his administrative work as the director of the
McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research. Pitot explained his family's role in helping him
with his work by hosting parties. He also talked about fund raising efforts at McArdle and
other outreach work he did as the lab's director. Pitot then discussed national cancer
policy, including the increase in cancer research funding in the early 1970s and its effect
on cancer research in the United States. Pitot also offered further thoughts about his
tenure on the National Cancer Advisory Board and the President's Cancer Panel. Pitot
discussed his research on liver cancer, beginning with how he became interested in the
question as a student and continuing through his work at McArdle, which centered on
delineating the steps of multistage carcinogenesis in the liver, and trying to locate a spot
where this process could be arrested or disrupted. Pitot also talked about his teaching
career, as well as his family background and how his religious belief informed his
scientific work. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the UW-Madison Oral
History Program.
Key Words: Henry Clement Pitot; McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research; Oncology;
Pathology; Van Potter; Jim Miller; Betty Miller; UW Medical School; UW Carbone
Cancer Center; National Cancer Advisory Board; President's Cancer Panel War on
Cancer; National Cancer Institute; Liver cancer; Roswell Boutwell.
Interview Session (September 9, 2013): Digital File
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
Time
Keywords
00:00:00 Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction.
00:00:11 Question: Why did Pitot come to McArdle as a postdoc? Answer: Henry Pitot (HP)
explained that he got his bachelor's degree in chemistry at Virginia Military Institute,
and an organic chemistry professor there required that students do research. This gave
him an interest in biochemistry, and he was told that he had to go to medical school in
order to learn it. Pitot went to medical school at Tulane University (1951-55). Pitot
said that during his first year of medical school he almost quit because he did not like
rote learning. However, he met Emmanuel Farber, a pathologist who allowed HP to
work in his laboratory and introduced him to the study of liver cancer. In the summer
between his first and second year of medical school Pitot doing research with Ernest
Kun, who was a visiting professor at Tulane, and the synthetic organic chemist Joe
Dechary. Pitot said that he would like to study how disease mechanisms work. Kun
told HP about McArdle. Farber suggested that he get his MD and then learn
biochemistry after that; in the meantime he could train in pathology. Pitot said that
this seemed like a good plan to him though he did not think too much about what it
might involve. Farber suggested that he apply for a fellowship to support Pitot and his
wife; Pitot applied for and received an American Cancer Society fellowship. After he
graduated he went right into pathology, skipping an internship. He took primarily
physical chemistry and advanced organic chemistry, as there were not too many
organic chemistry courses at Tulane. He received his doctorate in biochemistry in
1959 and had completed his requirements in pathology. HP began to be interested in
Van Potter's work, and met him at an American Cancer Society meeting in 1959.
Potter became interested in HP's work, and invited him to apply to become a postdoc.
At that point Pitot had four children and one on the way, he said, and so the family
came to Madison and rented an apartment. Pitot worked in Potter's lab and his wife
Julie took care of the children. Pitot said that his lab was one of the first to begin
studying new types of transplantable cancers. Potter became interested in his work,
and he and Rusch offered him a faculty position. At this point, UCLA was interested
in hiring him, and Tulane wanted him to come back. Pitot related going to an
interview for a fellowship in Virginia, when he narrowly missed taking a plane that
crashed. Potter said he was very outspoken in these interviews and he was not chosen.
He took a position at McArdle, on a lower salary than the one he received as a
postdoctoral fellow. He said he had a number of other offers but he did not take them.
00:15:23 Question: Why didn't Pitot take those offers? Answer: Difficult to move with a large
family. The only one that was interesting to him was Stanford, but they never offered
him a position, which he said was because he had a larger family. Pitot said that some
of the offered salaries were two to three times what he had at McArdle, though he
noted that living expenses were greater at other places.
00:16:55 Question: What was Pitot's lab like when he first arrived? Answer: The lab and office
were small [half the size of the small meeting room used for the interview]. He and
Potter were close collaborators for the first 3-4 years. He received his own space
when McArdle moved to its new building in 1964. Question: What was it like to
work with Potter? Answer: Potter gave complete ownership of a project to his student.
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
He taught HP that kind of fairness. He was a scientific father to Potter, alongside
Farber and his teacher at VMI. Question: How did HP's relationship with Potter
evolve over time? Answer: HP said they became closer in some respects, but more
distant in other respects, because their scientific interests diverged and they had
different labs. Pitot said that the NCI Program Project Grant received by McArdle
melded all of the institution's federal grants together, and Rusch gave more money to
Pitot, increasing the size of his lab. Where Potter and HP differed was on spiritual
matters, he said. HP is a devout Roman Catholic and Potter was an agnostic. HP
characterized Potter's turn toward bioethics as a practical spirituality.
00:25:10 Question: Impressions of Harold Rusch as a director? Answer: Rusch's function was
to make sure that all of the faculty did the best they could. Rusch got the current
McArdle building built. His dream was the cancer center, [now Carbone Cancer
Center] which he reached. Pitot speculated as to whether Rusch would agree with
McArdle's planned move to the cancer center, and assumed that he would. HP said
that Rusch's humility and dedication to the faculty made McArdle what it is, and he
hoped that other directors kept this philosophy. HP said he tried to, as did Norman
Drinkwater. HP said that some parts of McArdle have not changed for the better, such
as the possibility of having joint appointments where the primary appointment was
McArdle, as Pitot said he had. McArdle used to be more a tightly-knit community
under Rusch, he said. Pitot noted that Howard Temin and Waclaw Szybalski began at
McArdle at the same time. HP noted that the university had moved slowly in getting
Temin an acceptable laboratory, as the facilities managers were overworked and could
not get things done on time. HP discussed Temin's work on the Rous sarcoma virus,
what was then a new area of research, and for several years he had no publications.
HP said that he became an associate professor a year before Temin did, but Rusch still
supported him.
00:33:33 Question: What was it like to work with Waclaw Szybalski? Answer: Pitot worked
with one of Szybalski's people, a cell culture expert, so this was his closes association
with Szybalski. HP noted that his expertise in molecular biology helped Pitot's group
a number of times, though they did not have much interaction. Pitot noted that there
was a moment when liver cancer was a particular focus on many of the workers at
McArdle. Temin then came out with some seminal papers about the metabolism of
Rous sarcoma-infected cells, and then his reverse transcriptase work [for which
Temin won the Nobel Prize in 1975] which was initially not accepted. HP speculated
that David Baltimore [who co-won the Nobel with Temin and Renato Dulbecco] had
heard Temin give a presentation and then tried to verify Temin's ideas with similar
experiments. Pitot reminisced about Temin calling him early in the morning to tell
him that he won the Nobel.
00:38:20 [No question] The closest people that he worked with were Jim and Betty Miller, for
whom he read their slides. Prior to this, the Millers sent their slides to the State
Laboratory of Hygiene, a process that took several months and was expensive. For
them it was nice to have someone who could read the slides. This meant that they had
to develop a histotechnology laboratory. HP said that a friend of his in Chicago told
him about a histology technician, George Pridmore for a pathologist named Otto
Saphir at the University of Chicago. The technician had come to Madison and was
looking for a job, and McArdle hired him, in about 1965. Pitot said he was very
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
skilled, because he was trained by a master. Pridmore maintained the lab's electron
microscope as well. Pitot then explained the collaborative work he did with the
Millers, and discussed Betty Miller, who he described as humble as well as an
extremely exact scientist, who expected accuracy from her graduate students and
postdocs. Pitot explained that Rusch was the editor of the American Journal for
Cancer Research and Ilse Riegel [on McArdle's scientific staff] was the publication's
the managing editor. Betty Miller was also a member of the editorial board, and had
an extremely good knowledge of how to publish a scientific paper. Pitot said she had
been maligned when she was training at UW; she ended up in home economics
because the biochemistry department was only taking male students. She was even
turned down for a fellowship even though she was the best student. Pitot said she
could have become bitter about this, but did not. She ended up getting a major
professor in the biochemistry department and a degree in biochemistry. She was an
associate professor until the late 1960s, which Pitot described as absurd because she
was doing important work. Pitot said that the Millers worked together very well. Jim
was more staid than Betty, Pitot said. Pitot said that every week he and Betty would
discuss the department before staff meetings [Betty Miller was the assistant director
of McArdle when Pitot was the director]. Pitot said Betty's diagnosis of [ovarian]
cancer saddened him deeply, as a pathologist he knew the prognosis wasn't good.
00:49:22 Question: Relationship with Roswell Boutwell? Answer: Pitot discussed Boutwell
and Gerry Mueller together, as they were very close. He said that he didn't think that
they supported his being made an assistant professor, as he was an outsider and too
young. Pitot said they became closer later. Pitot said that Mueller was brimming over
with ideas, most of which he couldn't follow up on. Pitot said that he, Boutwell and
Mueller would room together when they went to meetings. When he was going to
become director, Pitot went around to talk to all of the faculty members and Mueller
seemed a bit hesitant. Pitot then discussed how his work on multi-stage liver cancer in
the 1970s had similarities with Boutwell's work on skin cancer.
00:53:56 Question: Work with Heidleberger? Question: Pitot said he gave a talk at a journal
club about François Jacob and Jacques Monod's work on the feedback mechanisms
for gene expression and how it might relate to cancer. Heidelberger suggested that
they publish these ideas, which they did. The paper was a theoretical one, but was
very widely circulated; Pitot said he didn't know why it was popular, except for the
fact that it was a way for cancer researchers to connect their work with what was
being done in bacterial genetics. Pitot said that Heidelberger and his first wife were
very sociable.
00:56:55 Question: Support staff? Answer: Helen Iverson [business manager of McArdle] and
Reigel were important to Pitot's work. Iverson and Pitot worked closely together
while he was director. Pitot noted that Iverson and her husband owned a bowling
alley, and Pitot, and his wife would bowl at their alley, and then sit and chat. Pitot
said that Iverson was able to keep all the scientists at McArdle reasonably happy,
which he described as a feat. Iverson also developed ovarian cancer; Pitot described
her reaction to the treatment; he said he was sad to see her suffer. HP noted that
Iverson had asked him what it was like to die, as a physician she thought he should
know; he could not answer the question. Pitot said that Reigel would help him with
manuscripts. He said that she had a doctorate in zoology but knew a fair amount of
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
biochemistry and oncology. She and Betty Miller wrote the major grants for the
department. Everyone would contribute but they would make it readable and
presentable. They were very detailed and excellent grants. Pitot said he was blessed
with an amazing team as director.
10:04:07 End of Interview
Interview Session (September 11, 2013): Digital File
Time
Keywords
00:00:00 Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction.
00:00:11 Question: Why did you become chair of pathology at the University of Wisconsin in
1968? Answer: Pitot explained that UW's pathology department was quite old
fashioned, and isolated from clinical pathology. Surgical pathology was initially part
of the department of medicine, not part of pathology proper. Pitot said he was offered
the chair of the pathology department at Yale University as well as at UW; the
attraction for UW was that he would be able to keep his laboratory at McArdle. He
intended to be chair for about three years to build up the department, give it a national
profile, and integrate the clinical labs with the department of pathology. The
department of medicine did not like this, and Pitot compromised by requiring that the
head of the clinical labs be part of the department of pathology. This happened in
1972-73. HP said that he maintained his laboratory because he had some outstanding
postdocs who ran the lab while he took care of administrative duties. Pitot said that
the pathology department brought in a neuropathologist to build the pathology
department's house staff program, which he did by hiring a number of osteopaths for
the residency program. One of these students, George Michalopoulos, became Pitot's
graduate student. Pitot discussed how the pathology department became more deeply
involved with its service role, including doing autopsies for the city of Madison's
coroner's office after hiring a forensic pathologist. Prior to this the coroner was the
forensic pathologist for the city, which Pitot said meant that it was literally possible to
get away with murder, as the coroner had a limited budget for doing autopsies and
would not spend his money on it. Pitot reminisced about a murder-suicide in town
involving six people, and the pathology department did the autopsies for him. The
advantage of this was that the department earned money for doing this work. Pitot
explained that UW did pathology for most of the state, except for Milwaukee, which
had its own medical examiner. He described some of the other recruits to the
pathology department, including a renal pathologist and a woman named Enid
Gilbert, a pathologist and pediatrician, who was a visiting professor. Her husband was
on a fellowship at UW and is now a physiologist at Madison.
00:17:13 [No question] Pitot detailed his efforts to leave his position as the chair of the
pathology department without getting in trouble with the dean, as he had only stayed
for three years. He said he took what he thought was the easy way out when he
became the acting dean of the medical school [in 1971]. Pitot said he would take the
job for a year. He said that a lot of the deans of medical schools in the U.S. are
pathologists because they straddle the divide between basic and clinical science. Pitot
said that there was a push to keep the medical school on campus versus a push to
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
move it to its current location. Pitot said he was against it because it was a very
expensive proposition, around $60 million in 1970. The state would come up with a
portion of the funding, and there was a grant proposal in with the federal government
would pay $10 million. He said that it was not a sure thing that UW would get the
grant. The state was willing to put money in if the federal grant came through; the rest
of the funding would come from state bonds. When UW got the federal grant the state
came through with less than expected. The medical school campus was built for about
$40-50 million, he said. Construction began while Pitot was still acting dean. This
question was a big part of his deanship. The other one was a push in the state to train
more primary care physicians. There was a family physician residency at UW, which
had a preceptorship program as well, which dated from the 1920s. There was
resistance to starting a department of family medicine with its own residency
program. Pitot said that the medical school was very conservative, and there was a
bitter fight between medicine and surgery at the time as well, about the much greater
salaries enjoyed by surgeons. In addition the chairman of surgery was against the
other aspects of the medical school. Pitot said that he arranged for him to have a
position in the chancellor's office with more money and more prestige, in order to
bring in a new chairman of surgery, Folkert O. Belzer, who mended fences.
00:29:14 [No question] Pitot narrates how he became McArdle's director. McArdle chairman
Harold Rusch was one of the members of President Richard Nixon's committee to set
up cancer centers across the country, and he began to dedicated himself to obtaining
one for Wisconsin. Pitot said that the McArdle faculty told Rusch that he couldn't be
the head of the department if he was going to work on the cancer center full time. He
explained that Rusch's ultimate goal was to bring McArdle and a clinical center
together as a unit. The department then voted on who their next director would be.
Pitot suspected that Rusch and McArdle scientist Van Potter nominated him, because
he had administrative experience. He said that running McArdle takes a scientist, not
an administrator. He said that all of the faculty agreed that he should be director. So
Pitot stepped down as acting dean of the medical school and became McArdle's
director, with Betty Miller as the associate director.
00:33:53 Question: How did Pitot split his duties with Miller? Answer: Pitot explained that he
was the “talker” and Miller was the “doer.” She interacted with the faculty members
and take the pulse of the department. They met once a week to discuss how things
were going. Miller also worked on grants. Pitot addressed Betty Sheehan, an
administrator at McArdle who was sitting in on the interview, to ask her if she also
worked on grants, which she had. Pitot said he tried to go on the national scene. He
had been chairman of a training grant committee for the National Institutes of Health,
and he worked on the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB) of the National
Cancer Institute, and was chairman of it. This was important for the department, but
took a lot of time, so Miller kept the department going while Pitot tried to keep
McArdle's profile high at a national level. Pitot discussed the difference between the
NCAB and the President's Cancer Panel, on which he also served. He said that it was
not clear what the latter group did; he said that it was mainly for show. Pitot
explained said once that the director of the NIH called Pitot in one day and asked him
he was interested in being the NCI director and he told him no, he said this was a
political appointment on the national level and this would mean stepping out of
science. He said he was fortunate that he could keep up his laboratory while being the
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
director of McArdle, though not at 100%. Pitot returned to explaining his role at
McArdle; he said there were a couple of times that things got testy in the department
that was his responsibility to smooth it over; also he ran staff meetings.
00:40:52 Question: What were Pitot's major goals for McArdle while director? Answer: Pitot
said that he got McArdle a new animal facility via a grant from the NCI. The
advantage to this was that it was outfitted according to new workplace rules for
working with carcinogens. Pitot noted that the fourth floor of the McArdle building
was empty when it first built, to come within budget and allow for expansion. Pitot
noted that Rusch did not allow joint departments in McArdle to keep cohesiveness,
which kept the department together. He said that Dove eventually obtained a joint
appointment in genetics, though he was not paid by that department. The same went
for Pitot, though he did receive some money apart from his regular salary for being a
practicing pathologist.
00:45:33 Question: Other goals for McArdle? Answer: Pitot explained that his main goal was
to keep it as an outstanding research department. He said that there was once a dean
who wanted a joint appointment in McArdle, which HP said he was against, as he
wouldn't have a lab or a research program in the department. After Pitot stepped down
and Norman Drinkwater took over (in 1991) then joint appointments increased.
Question: challenges that faced you as a director? Answer: Pitot said that there was
plenty of funding from the NCI and the cancer center during his tenure, which made
things good. Pitot explained some of the grants that McArdle received to improve the
facilities. McArdle was one of the few basic science centers that had a core grant to
itself. He said there was an always an argument to get McArdle to connect with the
clinical center. Pitot said that the Carbone Cancer Center was built in such a way that
the space was not used efficiently, so that researchers did not get enough space and
the heating and cooling costs were extremely high.
00:53:22 Question: Anything Pitot disliked about being McArdle's director? Answer: Pitot said
it was rewarding to help his colleagues. Rusch had taught him that the director's job
was to keep everyone doing the best they could. Question: Why did Pitot step down?
Answer: He said he had done it enough, and that he could do other things for a few
years before he retired. The rule at the university is that departments elect their
chairmen, as it is often looked on as a chore. But in the basic science departments it
was looked on as a promotion. When Pitot resigned there was a lot of discussion, and
the person who steered them to the right person was Howard Temin. He and the
Millers supported Drinkwater's election, and most people recognized his genius.
Thhere were doubts about how he would handle administration, but it worked out
well. Pitot said that it was more important to be a scientist in order to interact with
other scientists, rather than being an administrator first.
00:57:18 End of Interview
Interview Session (September 13, 2013): Digital File
Time
Keywords
00:00:00 Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction.
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
00:00:10 Question: Role of wife and family in supporting administrative work? Answer: Henry
Pitot (HP) explained his early years with his wife as a young married couple when he
was in medical school and residency at Tulane. They had four children very quickly
and had a lot of help from their relatives in New Orleans. When the Pitot family
moved to Madison in 1959 his wife Julie figured out how the family would live on his
salary, he said. Pitot explained where his first house was in Madison, and that the
money was tight for a large family. Pitot became an assistant professor in 1963 and
the bump in salary made things a little easier, though he said that they wouldn't have
survived without his wife's ingenuity and skill in living on a budget. Pitot explained
that his wife and her friend would buy things from a Mr. Miller who would sell
canned goods and other items very cheaply, as they were salvaged from train or truck
crashes. HP said that they could buy large amounts of food this way. Pitot said he
took a side position as the pathologist for the Veterans Affairs hospital, which paid
$25 per autopsy, which was a lot of money for them. Pitot was given a boost in salary
whiel he was acting dean of the medical school in 1971.
00:07:00 [No question] Pitot discussed the ways in which his family helped with social
activities that brought together his colleagues socially. They helped out at a Christmas
party Pitot held while he was chair of pathology in 1968. Pitot then segued toward
discussing the house he lived in at this time. He said this students and Van Potter's lab
group helped the family move. HP said that he and his family needed to fix up parts
of it and did so over time; he explained the renovations and how they were able to
pay for them. He then returned to discussing how he interacted socially with his
colleagues; he explained hosting annual dinner parties with his lab group and with the
pathology department. Pitot's wife and the children would cater these parties. At one
time Pitot hosted three parties: one for the medical school, one for the pathology
department, and one for oncology. He explained this was a backbreaking year. The
Pitots hosted Christmas parties for McArdle for 8-10 years until McArdle professor
William Dove suggested that they rotate who hosts, which Julie thought was great,
Pitot said. This worked for about two years and then stopped. Pitot said that getting
people to socialize together was helpful.
00:17:46 Question: Why did Pitot become involved in public outreach work? Answer: Pitot
said he felt a debt to the American Cancer Society for supporting him with
fellowships, so he was involved with their speaker's bureau. As a pathologist he could
answer questions from the public about the disease process, though he couldn't
answer questions about treatment. For the past 4-5 years he had been involved with
continuing education at the medical school, and so he gives a talk about
environmental concerns and cancer about once a year. This provides a review for
physicians, or brings them up to date on the subject, so they can talk to patients.
Question: Were most of your talks in Wisconsin? Answer: Pitot said they were mostly
in Wisconsin, with a couple of exceptions. He explained that he once took the place
of the governor at the opening of the Gundersen Clinic in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He
said he delivered the speech in a tent and it was very hot.
00:22:17 Question: Did Pitot do any fund raising for McArdle while director? Answer: HP said
that the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of McArdle happened while he was
director and they tried to do some fund raising related to this event. Pitot said they
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
hired Jackie Miley to lead this work, but it did not go so well. [McArdle administrator
Bette Sheehan, who sat in on the interview, provided the name] It was difficult for
scientists to work on fundraising, he said. There was also an attempt to put together a
McArdle run/walk event, but that also did not go well. State institutions like McArdle
are not supposed to overtly solicit funds, he said, so that made it more difficult. The
University of Wisconsin Foundation would be happy to have McArdle raise money,
but that money would be put in general foundation coffers, not directly to McArdle.
00:25:25 Question: Wasn't there an attempt to talk to funeral directors to get people to give
money to the department? Answer: Pitot said that there was, but he couldn't
remember who came up with that idea. There was one “Santa Claus” figure, he said,
who was the nephew of Michael W. McArdle, the original benefactor of the lab. The
nephew who owned a vacation spot named Maxwelton Braes in Door County. They
would send $5,000-$6,000 every Christmas. That ended when he died, and the heir
was not interested in McArdle. Pitot said that there was a party for the fiftieth
anniversary with some of the McArdle family. This raised the profile of the
department. The sixtieth anniversary passed without fanfare, he said, and by the time
the 75th anniversary will come around McArdle will be buried within the Carbone
Center for Cancer Research.
00:27:25 Question: Merging McArdle and UW Carbone Cancer Center grants? What was
reaction at McArdle to this? Answer: Pitot said that the pressure to merge the two
grants came from the National Cancer Institute. The Chancellor put together a
committee about the melding of McArdle and the Center, to keep the NCI happy.
Pitot said he was chair of the committee. He said that there was pressure within the
Center, as the internists wanted to be part of the medical school, which would give
them more access to patients. The physicians in medical oncology would only see
patients with solid tumors. The efficacy of chemotherapy for solid tumors 25 years
ago was not very good. So the internists would get patients who had been worked on
by surgeons and radiotherapists; with drugs an internist could prolong life somewhat.
With leukemia and lymphomas it was possible to cure the disease with chemotherapy.
The hematology department had these patients, however, and the hemotologists
would have nothing to do with the medical oncologists. So the internists moved in
order to have access to patients they could treat. Pitot then explained that melding
McArdle and the Cancer Center's grant was recommended to the chancellor, with
some stipulations, that if McArdle was ever to move out to the Center there would be
ample space and independence. With the new center, these two stipulations will not
be honored, he said. This agreement only made NCI administrators happy, no one
else. He said that the director of McArdle is at a disadvantage if he is not a physician,
because you have to deal with them. Pitot said that he and most of his colleagues did
not think that McArdle and the center would be merged, but it has happened. He said
it is unfortunate that McArdle cannot get construction money for itself at the moment.
Pitot asked Sheehan about the height of the building and the location of McArdle's
lab space, and noted that it wouldn't be possible to get money to expand if that was
needed. He noted that Jim Schull, the current McArdle director, has a problem in that
others think that McArdle's private money should be used to support new faculty.
Pitot said that Rusch never did that; he always would give them a small amount of
money with the expectation that they obtain their own funds. He noted that it might
not be feasible to expect that these days.
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
00:38:14 Question: Thoughts on Richard Nixon's declaration of the War on Cancer in 1971?
Answer: Pitot said that Nixon just threw money at cancer. The people who were more
politically connected were physicians who directed well-known cancer centers, and
were therefore poised to obtain money. Other institutions scrambled to set up
institutions to receive funds. Consequently the first big push was the development and
construction of cancer centers. There were research grants as well, and this expanded
the grant funding capabilities of the NCI. Anyone at that time with a reasonable
proposal could obtain funds, he said. Each year there was an increase in funds, from a
few hundred million to billions of dollars currently. This move to increase funding for
cancer research was pushed by politicians and private organizations. Pitot said it led
to the demise of the American Cancer Society as a research funding institution; now it
is an advocacy group, which was a controversial move. The point was that the ACS
could not compete with the NCI in terms of funding, though they could give grants in
different ways, such as offering grants for research on cancer prevention. Pitot said he
was on the ACS board, and noticed that the percentage of fund raising income
earmarked for research grants has fallen over the years. When federal money became
tighter in the seventies it was more difficult to get grants. Cancer centers had grown
in number over this time, and that drove the research proposals.
00:44:55 Question: Rise in funding levels led to an improvement in cancer research? Answer:
Pitot said that he feels that too much money is not good. Cancer is a complicated
disease, and it is more evident that the cancer cell is a cell in which the genetic
makeup of the cell is very fluid. It tends to get worse as it grows. He said that the
push to determine cancer genomes is not useful as each genome is going to be
different. Unless you kill every cancer cell in a patient you have not cured them, he
said. Pitot said that on the flip side there have been a lot of superb science done on the
genetics of cancer. But the goal of controlling cancer as a disease after it has become
a malignant one has not come about. He then noted that cancer can be prevented, but
that people are not willing to stand by a prevention methodology, including smoking
and obesity. He said that he believes that the increase of breast cancer over the years
can be traced to using contraceptive pills and not having children; he said that these
points are not in common circulation because they go against social norms. Pitot
explained that prevention is difficult because it takes education and persuasion.
00:50:54 Question: During Pitot's time on the National Cancer Advisory Board, what was the
direction that he and his fellow board members wanted to take cancer research?
Answer: Pitot said that he could not remember it all. When he first got on the board
he was involved in an NCI committee on environmental carcinogenesis. The NCI set
up rules about determining the safety of new chemicals based on the science of the
1960s and 70s and they haven't really changed anything about them. That was
something that NCAB was concerned with but were not able to change it. The
problem is that certain chemicals are tested by giving them to animals at very high
levels, and if they get cancer then the chemical is carcinogenic. There is a lot of data
out there now that militates against this, but the NCI has not changed. He says that
this is probably political. He then noted that one of the members of the board was a
union member and was very against any change in the testing of carcinogens. Pitot
said that that it is important to test for carcinogens in the case of pharmaceuticals that
are intended to be given for the lifetime of the individual, like statins. He explained
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
how the carcinogen testing was conducted for Merck's statin, Mevacor. Pitot said that
he was flown in to DC to testify at the hearing. Pitot explained that NCAB is
composed of scientists, physicians, and laypeople, some of whom were tangential to
the whole cancer problem. Board members did not have sufficient knowledge of
oncology, he said. He also said that the directorship of the NCI became vacant at the
time; in addition there was a lot of discussion about the cancer centers and how much
of the budget should go to them. Part of the reason for this was that a third of the
membership were cancer center directors, including himself. Question: Difference
between NCAB work and that of the President's Cancer Panel? Answer: Pitot said
that he didn't do anything on the panel except show up at meetings. The chairman of
the three person group was a surgeon from one of the black medical schools, and
Nancy Brinker [founder of the Susan G. Komen Foundation] was on it as well. Pitot
said it wasn't clear to him what the panel was supposed to do, as it had nothing to do
with grants, though they could write position papers on something they were
interested in. He said it was supposed to be a good thing to be on it, but the work was
not as rewarding as NCAB. He said that on that board there were some grants brought
to their attention by NCI staff and then the board would make a decision. Sometimes
they would take a grant and pay it out of line if it was of interest to the cancer
program. This kind of thing involved a lot of discussion among the members who
knew something about oncology, primarily.
01:05:05 End of Interview
Interview Session (September 17, 2013): Digital File
Time
Keywords
00:00:00 Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction.
00:00:11 Question: Why did Pitot develop an interest in studying the formation of new cancer
tissue? Answer: Henry Pitot [HP] began to be interested in it in medical school, when
his professor Emmanuel Farber convinced him that he should stay in medical school
and go into biochemistry after medical school. He also worked in Farber's laboratory.
He was working on trying to synthesize protein in living systems, which he described
as a “grandiose scheme” which didn't work out but introduced him to a number of
different technologies. He also worked on Farber's subject, liver cancer. Pitot
discussed their research on a transplantable cancer called the Dunning hepatoma; they
demonstrated that the this cancer had characteristics which were different from other
liver cancers in the sense that it was not very differentiated from normal liver tissue.
Pitot said that the first six or seven years of his research at McArdle focused on
delineating the characteristics of transplantable cancers. In addition Pitot worked on
how dietary changes affect the the development of cancer; fasting caused the
expression of certain genes at very high levels. Pitot used these findings and applied
them to the hepatomas, in the sense that some cancers have a similar spike in gene
expression as with fasting. They found that manipulating hormones in an
experimental animal made the gene expression go down. Pitot said that he continued
with this work by asking what would happen with these genes if you fed certain diets
to animals; for example, with high levels of protein. He found that this could be
abruptly cut off by giving the animal glucose. This effect had been known with
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
bacteria but not shown with animals, though this had no affect on cancer. Pitot said
that they found that the problem with the cancers they studied was that the cancers
could not control the expression of genes, which is the characteristic of neoplasia.
This observation made him very interested in the mechanism of control of genes.
Pitot said they were using inhibitors to do this work; this was before it was possible to
isolate the proteins. Pitot said that he and his lab tried to create a model that seemed
to fit the phenomenon; a nucleic acid such as messenger RNA was stable or unstable
in the cell. So if it was very unstable, what would happen was that the protein would
spike and then decline, but if it was stable it would spike and then stay at that level.
Pitot wrote a theoretical paper about this with Stuart Kauffman. Some of Pitot's
research was on demonstrating it, and he said that they did to some extent.
00:17:06 [No question] Pitot then discussed his work with Potter's group on hepatomas. They
looked at eight different transplantable cancers under different dietary conditions.
They demonstrated that each cancer was unique in terms of the control of gene
expression. However, these cancers were very similar in terms of their form (i.e.,
morphologically). This work was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His research
protocol involved giving an animal a single dose of carcinogen; it was analogous to
the multi-stage system that Pitot's McArdle colleague Roswell Boutwell had been
studying in skin cancer. Pitot said that after administering the carcinogen there would
be little nodes of cells (foci) within the liver which would express a gene that normal
liver cells would not express. It was possible to give a small dose of a carcinogen and
then give an agent – in this case, phenobarbital – which stimulated liver cancers. This
would result in a large number of foci, and they could get big. Without the
phenobarbital there would only be a few foci. Pitot said that there was an engineer,
Harold Campbell, who became interested in the problem of enumerating the nodules
within the liver; it was not possible to count them all in a solid organ. Campbell used
mathematical techniques borrowed from metallurgy and a computer to help count the
foci. Pitot said this became a fairly sophisticated analysis, and it was possible to
figure out if a focus expressed genes the same way as another focus. Pitot said that
they found that each focus was unique. This corresponded with work done by other
scientists on the pancreas, he said, which found little carcinomas within the foci. This
ended up being a three-stage model of carcinoma. This was very similar to the same
system in skin cancer, Pitot said.
00:28:12 Question: Did Pitot talk to Boutwell about this? Answer: Yes, Pitot said, though it
took a little while for him to agree that this was multistage carcinogenesis: initiation,
promotion, and progression. Up until about 1960s it was agreed that multistage
carcinogenesis was unique to the skin. Pitot said that they collaborated with other
research groups to set up models for this system. Pitot said this led into a different
area of research. Pitot then explained the stages of carcinogenesis, noting that while
everyone has initiated cells, they don't develop into cancer unless they are promoted.
Pitot developed a number of arguments that the foci were initiated cells. He noted that
one of his students demonstrated that the foci could be created in animals but that
there needed to be a promoting agent to make them grow. Pitot said that the final
stage of his research was to look for genes that were involved in the movement from a
stage of promotion to that of progression, in order to find a way to stop the process.
They were able to characterize a particular chomosomal region which was imprinted,
i.e., the methylation of genes controlled their expression, and Pitot explained how this
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
process occurs. Pitot explained his lab's research on one gene to demonstrate that its
methylation was different from normal, which was a start toward determining the
shift from promotion to progression. Abnormal methylation of DNA tends to cause
the DNA to make mistakes, which would be an argument that progression could
develop from this. Pitot said they used the liver as a model for how cancer develops
with the idea that they might be able to arrest or alter the process. He said that their
research leads toward the idea that each cancer is not only different but as it continues
to grow it changes. To ultimately eliminate these cells would be quite difficult. Pitot
explained targeted chemotherapy, drugs which target certain biochemical markers.
This works better with some cancers than with others, as very few cancers show a
specific chromosomal abnormality that can be targeted with a drug. The good news
with cancer is that the process is well understood, but there is not a way to stop the
cancer cell from progressing.
00:45:59 Question: Difference between biochemical and genetic techniques? Answer: The two
are nailed together by molecular biology, Pitot said. Biochemistry in the old sense
was pathways and looking at how enzymes work, and the chemistry of proteins.
Genetics is looking at how DNA replicates and its products. The chemistry of DNA is
what unites them. Molecular biology is a term that is not appropriate, but people use
it, he said.
00:47:15 Question: Why did Pitot teach both undergraduate and graduate courses in oncology?
Answer: Pitot said he thought he had a responsibility based on his training. He always
taught in medical schools, both oncology and pathology, as well as immunology. In
oncology at UW there was a basic course taught by ten or twelve professors, who
each gave a lecture on their area of expertise. It was a requirement for the doctorate in
oncology. When he became director [of the medial school] he changed the curriculum
to add higher level courses to discuss the topic in depth. Pitot said that he thought that
teaching was rewarding.
00:51:45 Question: Background on Pitot's family? Answer: Pitot explained his father's work for
a British insurance company, the Royal Exchange; he eventually became the CEO. He
retired early, in the late 1950s and his company gave him a very nice retirement
package. Pitot's mother had a bachelor's degree in acting, and was an actress in New
York for traveling companies. They got married in 1929, and Pitot was born in 1930.
His mother developed multiple sclerosis within a year of his birth, and Pitot has no
siblings. They lived in Sunnyside, NY. Pitot recalled that one of his father's sisters
was a pianist and very involved in Broadway shows. She wrote the dance music for
Kiss Me Kate and other productions. Pitot said that the family moved a few times, to
Alabama and New Orleans, then back to New York, where he started public school.
He moved to Richmond, Virginia, when he was in the eighth grade. Pitot said he
began to be interested in the cadet corps in high school and became interested in the
military. He went to the Virginia Military Institute for college. The first year cured
him of his military ambitions, he said, in part because of hazing. Pitot explained the
“rat line” which was a violent hazing ritual at the school. One of his classmates was
significantly hurt and so his was the last class to undergo it. Pitot said that by the time
he graduated from VMI he had very good grades, though the school miscalculated
and he was not recognized as one of the outstanding students, which angered Pitot's
father. Pitot said he applied to two medical schools: Tulane and the Medical College
Henry Clement Pitot (#1356)
of Virginia, the latter school he knew because he would sneak into the morgue with
friends while in high school. Pitot reminisced about meeting his wife during medical
school, and explained how he was able to avoid military service during the Korean
War; both because he was in medical school and he had bad eyesight.
01:07:57 Question: Father wrote a study of one of Pitot's ancestors, James Pitot? Answer: Pitot
said his father became interested in James Pitot. He was helped by a cousin who was
a historian, and he would travel in France looking at archives, as he was fluent in
French. Pitot explained that he was in contact with other Pitots around the world, in
Australia, Belgium, and Mauritius. Pitot said his father was convinced that there was
only one Pitot family, spread all over the world. His father also wrote a volume about
the French in the Mississippi Valley, which he wrote with his cousin.
01:12:37 Question: Did Pitot's Catholic faith inform his scientific work? Answer: Science is
religion, he said, as in least in biology the end point is to try to figure out how life
works, to understand God's creation. He thinks the distinction between religion and
science is absurd. He said that some parts of religion are not provable, and the same
could be said for certain scientific theories, such as quantum physics and the second
law of thermodynamics. All branches of science are trying to understand the creator
better, though they do not know it. He said he wrestled for a long time with faith but
he thought the thing that changed it was love: he explained the significance of the
crucifix.
01:15:25 End of Interview