The Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) offered a statement on the death of Dr. Ed Chu. Portions of that statement are provided here:
“Dr. Chu has had a distinguished career as a physician-scientist, clinical investigator, educator/mentor, and senior leader at NCI-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers.
“Dr. Chu’s basic research interests have focused on investigating the determinants of sensitivity and resistance to the antimetabolites, and he is considered one of the leading experts in the fluoropyrimidine field. His laboratory was the first to show that the expression of thymidylate synthase (TS), a key target for cancer chemotherapy, was controlled by a translational autoregulatory mechanism, and that in addition to its catalytic function, TS also functions as an RNA binding protein and binds to its own cognate TS mRNA. His research group made the seminal discovery of translational autoregulation as a novel regulatory mechanism in eukaryotes for controlling the expression of the folate-dependent enzymes, thymidylate synthase and dihydrofolate reductase. More recently, his research lab has focused on identifying and developing Chinese herbal medicines as novel treatments for colorectal cancer and other GI cancers.
“[Dr. Chu’s] clinical and translational research efforts have focused on identifying novel drugs and combination regimens for colorectal cancer and other [gastrointestinal] cancers. In particular, he has focused on developing early-phase I/II clinical trials that span classic cytotoxic agents, targeted agents, and immunotherapies. He has also had a very strong interest in integrating Chinese herbal medicine with standard cancer chemotherapy with the goal of enhancing clinical activity and reducing the toxicity associated with chemotherapy, and he was the Co-Principal Investigator of an NCI-funded P01 grant that investigated the effects of a Chinese herbal medicine as a modulator of irinotecan-based chemotherapy.
“At the national level, Dr. Chu has extensive experience as an NCI study section and NCI Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) reviewer. He has served on several NCI review committees, and he was currently serving on the NCI Experimental Therapeutics Committee and the NCI Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Committee. He served on NCI Subcommittee A for 5 years (Parent Committee, 2008–2013) and chaired the committee from 2011–2013. He continued to serve as chair of multiple NCI CCSG site visit reviews.
“Over the past 20 years, he has served on the external advisory boards (EABs) of 16 NCI-Designated Cancer Centers and he was currently serving as a member of 12 EABs, including [Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Institute and Yale Cancer Center, among others]. He was Chair of four EABs: the University of Arizona Cancer Center; University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center; UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center; and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center.”
