On Dec. 17, 1950, five thousand Oklahomans attended an Open House for a newly dedicated OMRF research building.

The building initially housed 11 laboratories and administrative offices, along with a floor of shelled space for eventual expansion. Within the next year, thanks to a grant from the National Institutes of Health, OMRF opened a 16-bed research hospital.

Research initiatives first specialized in cancer, heart disease and metabolic disorders, the program that hired Dr. Mary Carpenter as OMRF’s first female principal investigator in 1954. These “basic” research programs paired with clinical studies in the research hospital, where nurses and physicians treated some of Oklahoma’s sickest patients with experimental therapies. Soon, the research hospital became internationally recognized for its work with childhood cancers.