Professor A. Munro Neville
Professor Neville has made many substantial contributions to the understanding and control of cancer through his outstanding work in translating basic science into clinical practice. However he has also made a great personal commitment to the international scientific and medical communities through his active involvement in professional societies, editorial boards, and national and international committees and task-forces in Australia, Europe and North America, and his untiring role as guide and mentor to young investigators around the world.
For over 20 years, Dr. Neville’s research interests were centered on the structural and functional aspects of the human adrenal cortex and, in particular, its tumors. This interest resulted in his joint authorship of the definitive text on the subject, The Human Adrenal Cortex: Pathology and Biology, An Integrated Approach (ISBN 0387110852).
In 1975, Professor Neville was invited to establish an LICR Branch, which was first located in downtown London, but then moved in 1976 to the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton. He brought the Sutton Branch’s research to bear on the biology, pathology, and clinical aspects of breast cancer, and, in particular, the role of tumor markers in the earlier detection of metastasis. Additionally, studies were directed to elucidate the cause of hypercalcemia and osteolytic metastases in this disease. In time, prostaglandin inhibitors were tested in a small clinical trial, though unfortunately they proved unsuccessful.
The Sutton Branch staff was among the first to develop methods of immunohistochemistry, one of the principle methods used in pathology to diagnose disease, and the use of monoclonal antibodies for the detection of breast cancer micrometastases in the bone marrow and lymph nodes, an important prognostic marker. During his time as Director of the LICR Sutton Branch (1975 - 1985), Professor Neville also became a pivotal force in the translation of research discoveries into potential therapies in Europe. For example, he and his team were the first to perform clinical trials of aromatase inhibitors, now the front-line treatment for post-menopausal women with hormone-responsive breast cancer. A total of 15 Professors/Heads of Departments world-wide received training at the Sutton Branch.
Throughout his career, Professor Neville has shown great vision in mobilizing and leveraging international resources to further basic cancer research and the search for cancer therapies. One example of this was his joint leading role (with Dr. Carl Baker, the former Medical Director of the LICR) in the establishment of the highly successful Ludwig Breast Cancer Study Group in 1977. Now known as the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBSCG), this was the first large cohort of women assembled for clinical trials of potential breast cancer therapies. Professor Neville and Dr. Lloyd Old (who constantly refers to Professor Neville as ‘my comrade-in-arms’) later initiated the LICR’s ‘Angiogenesis Program’, a collaborative research effort that has brought together leading investigators from different institutions in Australia, Finland, Sweden, the UK and the USA, to study the biology of angiogenesis, a crucial component of tumor growth and metastasis. The LICR Angiogenesis Program investigators have made many seminal findings that are now being explored for treatment strategies for cancer, and a disabling condition called lymphedema, which often results from post-mastectomy irradiation damage.
Dr. Lloyd J. Old (left) and Professor A. Munro Neville
“In leading LICR over the past 17 years, Munro Neville has been a treasured comrade-in-arms. His deep and extensive knowledge of cancer and his intuitive understanding of the challenges confronting scientists on the frontline of cancer research have made him a precious resource for the Institute and its staff.
The Angiogenesis and Breast Cancer Programs that Munro initiated and led are surely models of success for the programmatic initiatives that the Institute wishes to foster, and the intellectual property program he developed for LICR is widely respected and emulated. These are only three of Munro’s many enduring legacies to LICR’s administrative and scientific life.
All in all, remarkable contributions to the structure and strengths of the Institute by a remarkable man.”
Dr. Lloyd J. Old, Director