On Jul. 9, 1980, Dr. Vincent T. DeVita, Jr. became the ninth director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), serving until 1988.

Dr. DeVita earned international recognition for his accomplishments as a pioneer in the field of Oncology. While at the NCI, he developed combination chemotherapy programs curative for Hodgkin’s disease and diffuse large cell lymphomas. He developed the four-drug combination, known by the acronym MOPP, which increased the cure rate for patients with advanced Hodgkin’s disease from nearly zero to over 70%. In addition, in collaboration with Dr. George Canellos, he developed the combination chemotherapy CMF, which still remains a useful therapy for breast cancer.