Jane Cooke Wright was a pioneering cancer researcher and surgeon noted for her contributions to chemotherapy. In particular, Wright is credited with developing the technique of using human tissue culture rather than laboratory mice to test the effects of potential drugs on cancer cells. She also pioneered the use of the drug methotrexate to treat breast cancer and skin cancer (mycosis fungoids).
Wright was born in Manhattan on November 30, 1919, to Corinne Cooke, a public school teacher, and Louis T. Wright, a graduate of Meharry Medical College and one of the first African American graduates from Harvard Medical School. Her father, Louis Tompkins Wright, was from a medical family. He was the child of Dr. Ceah Ketcham Wright, a physician graduated from Bencake Medical College, and stepson of William Fletcher Penn, the first African-American graduate of Yale Medical College. Wright’s uncle, Harold Dadford West, was also a physician, ultimately president of Meharry Medical College. Wright’s father continuously fought against racial injustice and declared the American Medical Association responsible for the existing racial discrimination in the medical field. He publicly stated, “the American Medical Association has demonstrated as much interest in the health of the Negro as Hitler has in the health of the Jew.” In becoming physicians, Jane Wright and her sister Barbara Wright Pierce both followed in their father’s and grandfathers’ footsteps, overcoming both gender and racial bias succeed in a largely white male profession.
Jane’s family had a strong history of academic achievement in medicine. The first medical member of the Wright family was Dr. Ceah Ketcham Wright. Ceah was first born into slavery, and after the Civil War, Ceah earned his medical degree at Meharry Medical College. Jane’s stepfather, Dr. William Fletcher Penn was the first African American to graduate from Yale Medical College. Lastly, Jane’s father, Dr. Louis T. Wright, who she took her greatest inspiration from, was among the first black students to earn an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and the first African American doctor at a public hospital in New York City. During his 30 years working at the Harlem Hospital, he founded and directed the Harlem Hospital Cancer Research Foundation.
Jane attended Smith College, originally wanting to pursue a degree in art, however, her father suggested to change her studies to pre-medical studies. After her studies at Smith college, Jane earned a full scholarship to study medicine at New York Medical College. She graduated as a part of an accelerated three-year program at the top of her class in 1945 with the honors award. After graduating from medical school, Dr. Wright earned an internship at Bellevue Hospital during 1945 and 1946. In 1947, she married David D. Jones, Jr, an attorney In 1949, she completed her surgical residency at Harlem Hospital in 1948, where her father was.
As a child, Wright attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, then the “Ethical Culture” school and the “Fieldston School”, from which she graduated in 1938. She graduated with an art degree from Smith College in 1942 and then earned a medical degree, graduating with honors in 1945 from the New York Medical College.
After medical school, she did residencies at Bellevue Hospital (1945–46) and Harlem Hospital (1947–48), completing her tenure at Harlem Hospital as chief resident. In 1949 she joined her father in research at the Harlem Hospital Cancer Research Center, which he had founded, succeeding him as director when he died in 1952. In 1955 she accepted a research appointment at New York University Bellevue Medical Center, as Associate Professor of Surgical Research and Director of Cancer Research.
In 1949, Dr. Wright joined her father at the Cancer Research Foundation at Harlem hospital. During her time at the research institute, she and her father sparked an interest in chemotherapeutic agents. They were interested in making chemotherapy more accessible for everyone. In the 1940s chemotherapy was a new development, so it was not a well-known or well-practiced source for treatment because it was still in its experimental stage of drug development. Chemotherapy was considered the “last resort” and the drugs available and dosage was not very well defined. Both Jane and her father wanted to make chemotherapy a more accessible method of cancer treatment. They were the first groups to report the use of nitrogen mustard agents and folic acid antagonists as cancer treatments. The Folic acid antagonist can block folic acid in the body, which is required for cells to produce certain types of amino acids. By inhibiting the folic acids, cells are unable to make new strands of DNA/RNA or produce proteins to drive mitosis. Because cancer cells are highly proliferative compared to the other class in the human body, it is crucial to stop mitosis from happening. The folic acid antagonists that were tested were probably the most important discovery because the antifolates are highly potent against a vast array of solid tumors, including several types of leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, lymphosarcoma, melanoma, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. Methotrexate is still one of the main chemotherapy drugs used today to treat many types of cancer, and it has been a basis for all modern chemotherapy.
Wright’s research work involved studying the effects of various drugs on tumors, and she was the first to identify methotrexate, one of the foundational chemotherapy drugs, as an effective tool against cancerous tumors. Wright’s early work brought chemotherapy out of the realm of an untested, experimental hypothetical treatment, into the realm of tested, proven effective cancer therapeutics—thus literally saving millions of lives. Wright and her father introduced nitrogen mustard agents, similar to the mustard gas compounds used in World War I, that were successful in treating the cancerous cells of leukemia patients. Wright later pioneered combinatorial work in chemotherapeutics, focusing not simply on administering multiple drugs, but sequential and dosage variations to increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy and minimize side effects. She was successful in identifying treatments for both breast and skin cancer, developing a chemotherapy protocol that increased skin cancer patient lifespans up to ten years. She also developed a non-surgical method, using a catheter system, to deliver potent drugs to tumors located deep within the body such as the liver and spleen. She published more than 100 papers on cancer chemotherapeutics during her career and served on the editorial board of the Journal of the National Medical Association.
During her career, Cooke also collaborated with cell biologist and physiologist Jewel Plummer Cobb, another noted African American woman scientist.
In addition to research and clinical work, Wright was professionally active. In 1964, she was the only woman among seven physicians who helped to found the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and in 1971, she was the first woman elected president of the New York Cancer Society. Wright was appointed associated dean and head of the Cancer Chemotherapy Department at New York Medical College in 1967, apparently the highest ranked African American physician at a prominent medical college at the time, and certainly the highest ranked African American woman physician. She was appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board (also known as the National Cancer Advisory Council) by US President Lyndon Johnson, serving from 1966 to 1970. and the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke (1964–65). Wright was also internationally active, leading delegations of oncologists to China and the Soviet Union, and countries in Africa and Eastern Europe. She worked in Ghana in 1957 and in Kenya in 1961, treating cancer patients. From 1973 to 1984 she served as vice president of the African Research and Medical Foundation.
Wright was the recipient of many awards, including the honorary Doctor of Medical Sciences degree from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Wright retired in 1985 and was appointed emerita professor at New York Medical College in 1987. In describing her pioneering research in chemotherapy, she told reporter Fern Eckman, “There’s lots of fun in exploring the unknown. There’s no greater thrill than in having an experiment turn out in such a way that you make a positive contribution.”
On July 27, 1947, Wright married David D. Jones and the couple had two daughters: Jane Wright Jones and Alison Jones. Her husband was an attorney and became the founder of anti-poverty and job training organizations for young African Americans. Unfortunately, in 1976, Mr. Jones died of heart failure. In addition to her love of the sciences, Jane was fond of watercolor painting, reading mystery novels, swimming, and sailing. Upon receiving the Merit Award from Mademoiselle in 1952, she stated, “My plans for the future are to continue seeking a cure for cancer, to be a good mother to my children, and a good wife to my husband.”