Ernest Kennaway

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Sir Ernest Laurence Kennaway
London EC1
Alma materUniversity College London
University of Oxford
Known forDiscovery of the first pure compound to show carcinogenic activity
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institute of Cancer Research
, London

Sir Ernest Laurence Kennaway

The Lister Institute for Preventive Medicine and UCL before returning to Oxford, this time to Brasenose College on a Hulme scholarship in 1909. He became a Travelling Fellow of Brasenose in 1910, a Doctor of Medicine in 1911 and a Doctor of Science (specifically physiological chemistry) in 1915.[2]

In 1909 he became a physiology demonstrator at

cyclic hydrocarbon. In 1929 he discovered the first pure compound to show evidence of cancer-causing activity, 1:2:5:6-dibenzanthracene, and also discovered a series of other carcinogenic hydrocarbons including methylcholanthrene.[2]
In 1930, Kennaway and Izrael Hieger showed for the first time that single polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), such as dibenz[a,h]anthracene, are tumorigenic in mouse skin.[4] Between 1932 and 1942 he published six articles on these discoveries in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.

After the death of Professor Archibald Leitch in 1931, Kennaway became professor of chemical pathology and Director of The Institute of Cancer Research,[5] where he remained until his retirement in 1946.[2] He was awarded the Royal Medal in 1941 "For his discovery of the nature of the carcinogenic substances in coal tar and for his investigations on production of cancer by synthetic substances."[6] and was knighted in 1947. At a conference commissioned by the Medical Research Council in 1947, he suggested that cigarette smoking rather than air pollution might be a cause of the large and continuing increase in lung cancer. The conference concluded that a large-scale case-control study should be undertaken,[7] which led to the classic study of Doll and Hill that linked smoking to lung cancer.[8]

For over thirty years he had suffered from Parkinson's disease, and this eventually killed him on 1 January 1958.[2]

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 72944379
    .
  2. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34277. Retrieved 3 November 2008. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  3. ^ "Carcinogens in cigarette smoke - The Institute of Cancer Research, London". www.icr.ac.uk. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
  4. ^ Andreas Luch, "Nature and Nurture - Lessons from Chemical Carcinogens", Nature Journals, February 2005
  5. ^ "Sir Ernest Laurence Kennaway | RCP Museum". history.rcplondon.ac.uk. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
  6. ^ "Royal archive winners 1949–1900". Retrieved 4 November 2008.
  7. OCLC 39857372.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  8. PMID 14772469
    .
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