Jodi Fisher Horowitz Professorship in Leukemia Care Excellence at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center: David L. Porter |
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July 15, 2014, Volume 61, No. 01 |
Dr. David L. Porter is the inaugural chair-holder of the Jodi Fisher Horowitz Professorship in Leukemia Care Excellence at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center. Dr. Porter also serves as director of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. He is perhaps best known for co-leading breakthrough immunotherapy clinical trials that produced sustained remissions in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Jerome Fisher, W’53, and his wife, Anne, established this chair in memory of Mr. Fisher’s daughter, Jodi Fisher Horowitz, a member of the Abramson Cancer Center Director’s Leadership Council and the driving force behind Fashion Footwear Association of New York’s “Shoes on Sale.” Working with the shopping network QVC since its second year, FFANY’s “Shoes on Sale” has donated $45 million to benefit the nation’s leading breast cancer research organizations, including the Abramson Cancer Center. The first-step awards donated from this effort support the earliest stages of research, and are especially powerful as beneficiaries were able to attract more than $200 million in additional funds from private and governmental sources.
“We decided to endow this chair in honor of my daughter because we knew that Dr. Porter, along with Dr. Carl June and their entire team, had made a tremendous breakthrough in the treatment of leukemia, and we wanted to make sure the research could go forward,” Mr. Fisher explained.
“All of us at Penn Medicine are deeply touched by this heartfelt gift from the Fishers, one of Penn’s most engaged families,” said J. Larry Jameson, the executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and dean of the Perelman School of Medicine. “Jodi’s tireless spirit and leadership in the fight against cancer inspired so many, and the chair that bears her name—and the good work of Dr. Porter and his successors—will offer new hope to patients and families around the world.”
Dr. Porter earned his medical degree at Brown University. He performed his residency at Boston University Hospital and completed his fellowship in hematology-oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He joined the faculty of the Perelman School of Medicine in 1996.
Consistently recognized as among the best physicians by Philadelphia magazine, America’s Top Doctors and Best Doctors in America, Dr. Porter was honored with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Service to Mankind Award in 2007. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, and serves on the Board of Directors for the National Marrow Donor Program. |