Professorship Gift To Honor Pagano Legacy at UNC Lineberger
Joseph Pagano, MD, is the founder and first director of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and his dedication to both patient care and research helped make UNC Lineberger one of the world’s premiere hubs for cancer research and treatment. A recent gift from his wife, Jody Pagano, recognizes his contribution and will help support the training and cancer research advances of the next generation of cancer researchers and clinicians.
“I feel so fortunate to be able to do this,” Jody Pagano said of her decision to honor her husband’s legacy at UNC Lineberger. “Joe has been a gift to me and to the world.”
The $1 million gift, matched by an additional $1 million from the UNC Lineberger Cancer Research Professorship Challenge Fund, will support the creation of a professorship at UNC Lineberger. The funds will support a world-class researcher and thought leader whose work helps expand the scientific understanding of cancer and help support development of new therapies for the disease.
“Dr. Joe Pagano’s vision helped establish UNC Lineberger as a place where groundbreaking science and exceptional patient care go hand in hand,” said Robert L. Ferris, MD, PhD, executive director of UNC Lineberger and chief of oncology clinical services at UNC Health.
“This gift honors that legacy while investing in the future by supporting the next generation of researchers and physician-scientists who will carry this work forward. We are deeply grateful to Jody Pagano for her generosity and for ensuring that Dr. Pagano’s impact on this cancer center and on the field of oncology will continue for years to come.”
During his tenure as the director of UNC Lineberger, Pagano oversaw the cancer center’s growth with a focus on world-class patient care and research. He recruited researchers such as Shelton “Shelley” Earp, MD, who went on to succeed him as the center’s director. Earp credits Pagano for having the vision to build the center around both patient care and basic research.
“There were not many oncologists here, but Joe was prescient in looking to develop physician scientists interested in studying how cancer evolved and was treated,” Earp said.
In his lab, Pagano pioneered the discovery of the links between viruses and cancer, showing how the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) transforms white blood cells into tumor cells and how viral particles can be found in the tumor cells of multiple forms of cancer. This research showed how the presence of a virus in the body can be a factor in developing multiple forms of cancers, including Burkitt’s lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a type of head and neck cancer.
Pagano’s discoveries paved the way both for the development of multiple vaccines for viruses linked to cancer, such as the HPV vaccine. His lab developed multiple antiviral drug therapies targeting EBV and the herpes virus.
Along with his research and clinical work, Pagano made the importance of training of the next generation of cancer researchers and physicians a core value at UNC Lineberger. Pagano served as principal investigator on the longest running postdoctoral fellowship program in the U.S., leading the program for 42 years.
As director of the Lineberger postdoctoral training program, Pagano advocated for training based on a multidisciplinary approach and creating opportunities for faculty and students to share their research through the Fellow’s seminar series, the annual Postdoc-Faculty Day and an endowment to award prizes to the year’s best papers.
Pagano’s legacy continues to be one that is forward-facing and impactful across the scope of cancer care. And thanks to Jody’s generous gift, it’s a legacy that will live on for generations.
For more information on supporting the critical research and patient care happening every day at UNC Lineberger and UNC Health, please contact Kristen Duggleby, Executive Director of Development, Cancer, at 919-966-3986 or [email protected].
