Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC) Institutional Review Board
Dr. Thomas London is the chairman of the FCCC Institutional Review Board (IRB), a post he has held since 1988. In 1966, Dr. London began a long-term collaboration with Dr. Baruch Blumberg, the discoverer of the hepatitis B virus (HBV). He has had a leading role in epidemiological, clinical, and virological studies of hepatitis B and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) that has resulted in more than 265 publications.
In 1992, Dr. London initiated large prospective studies of 90,000 adults in Haimen City, China and 19,000 members of the military in Senegal, West Africa. Both areas were known to have high prevalence’s of chronic infection with HBV and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The goal of the research was to identify the factors that led to high risk of HCC. Chronic infection with HBV proved to be the major risk factor for HCC with viral load (quantity of HBV DNA in serum) the determining factor. Dr. London is a graduate of Oberlin College, BA, 1953 and Cornell University Medical College, M.D., 1957.