Professor Brian Fox

To mark the current loan of instruments from the Museum of Medicine and Health to the Science Museum Group exhibition ‘Cancer Revolution: Science, Innovation and Hope’, honorary curator and volunteers, Dr Peter Mohr and Julie Mohr, reveal how the selected objects came into the care of the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health.

The University of Manchester’s Museum of Medicine and Health (MMH) holds more than a hundred objects from The Christie Hospital related to the history of the treatment of cancer. They were collected by Dr Brian Fox PhD (1929-1999), a Professor of Oncology and donated to the museum in 2002. Most of the objects date from the 1950s-70s; many of the instruments were for ‘brachytherapy’, designed to safely locate radium near to a tumour. Other objects were used for diagnosis, X-ray therapy and measuring the radiation dose.

Professor Fox was an expert on the use of drugs to treat cancer, studying chemistry at Durham University and researching alkaloids extracted from plants, such as the lupin, in the 1950’s. He joined the Christie Hospital and subsequently became Head of Experimental Chemotherapy, followed by being made a Professor in 1980 and Deputy Director of the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research in 1984.

Fox was interested in drugs derived from plants and how their geometric shape affected their biological action, and along with colleagues, he introduced and tested several anticancer drugs. He was indefatigable in his role of organising clinical trials; becoming Secretary of the Cancer Research Campaign Clinical Trials Committee fast-tracking potential chemotherapeutic drugs into clinical trials. Gaining an international reputation for his work on cancer chemotherapy, he was named Chairman of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer and then retired in 1993.

Photo courtesy of The Christie Hospital, taken by Phil Tragen

Professor Fox was a methodical record keeper and acted as unofficial archivist for The Christie Hospital; his vast collection of committee meeting minutes along with other documents, papers and photographs and his collection of the medical objects are now in the University Library Special Collections (Library Search (The University of Manchester) – Brian Fox).

By nature, Fox was a  ‘collector’ as well as his research material, archives and objects he was also known for his expertise on the classification of lichens and the effects of air pollution on their distribution, becoming President of the British Lichen Society, a member of the Committee for British Lichen Flora and a Fellow of the Linnean Society. A man of many talents: pianist, artist, botanist, medical historian, scientist and rightly remembered for his ground-breaking work on cancer chemotherapy and his work at the Christie Hospital.

Cancer Revolution; Science, Innovation and Hope is on display at Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum between 22 October 2021 and March 2022. Following this it will then tour to the Science Museum in London. Book your free tickets here Events | Science and Industry Museum

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