Early history of Memorial Hospital (1884–1934) The hospital was founded in
its original building on the
Upper West Side of
Manhattan The hospital appointed as an attending surgeon
William B. Coley, who pioneered an
early form of immunotherapy to eradicate tumors.
Rose Hawthorne, daughter of author
Nathaniel Hawthorne, trained there in the summer of 1896 before founding her own order,
Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. In 1899, the hospital was renamed General Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases. In 1902,
Arabella Huntington made a (equivalent to $million in ) bequest in memory of her late husband
Collis Potter Huntington to establish the first cancer research fund in the country, the Huntington Fund for Cancer Research. In 1931 the then-most-powerful 900k-volt
X-ray tube was put into use in
radiation-based cancer treatment at Memorial; the tube had been built by
General Electric over several years. In 1931 Ewing was formally appointed president of the hospital, a role he had effectively played until then, the accompanying article described his role as one of the most important cancer doctors of his era. He worked at the Memorial until his retirement, in 1939. Under his leadership, Memorial became a model for other cancer centers in the United States, combining patient care with clinical and laboratory research,
Memorial Hospital and the Sloan Kettering Institute (1934–1980) In 1934,
John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated land on
York Avenue for a new location. Two years later, he granted Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases (Memorial Hospital) $3.0million (equivalent to $million in ) and the hospital began their move across town. Memorial Hospital officially reopened at the new location in 1939. In 1945, the chairman of
General Motors,
Alfred P. Sloan, donated $4.0million (equivalent to $million in ) to create the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research through his Sloan Foundation, and
Charles F. Kettering, GM's vice president and director of research, personally agreed to oversee the organization of a cancer research program based on industrial techniques. The originally independent research institute was built adjacent to Memorial Hospital. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s
Chester M. Southam conducted pioneering
clinical research on
virotherapy and cancer immunotherapy at MSK; however he conducted his research on people without their
informed consent. He did this to patients under his care or others' care, and to prisoners. In 1963 some doctors objected to the lack of consent in his experiments and reported him to the Regents of the
University of the State of New York which found him guilty of fraud, deceit, and unprofessional conduct, and in the end, he was placed on probation for a year. In 1960, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center was formed as a new corporation to coordinate the two institutions, and
John Heller, the former director of the National Cancer Institute was named its president. At the end of the 1960s, as the field of
pediatric oncology began seeing success in treating children with cancer, Memorial opened an
outpatient pediatric
day hospital, partly to deal with the growing number of cancer survivors. In the early 1970s, Burchenal and
Benno Schmidt, a professional investor and trustee of MSK, were appointed to the presidential panel that initiated the U.S. federal government's
war on cancer in the early 1970s. In 1977,
Jimmie C. Holland established a full-time psychiatric service at MSK dedicated to helping people with cancer cope with their disease and its treatment; it was one of the first such programs and was part of the creation of the field of
psycho-oncology.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (1980–present) built between 1884 and 1886, now housing, at 455
Central Park West and 106th Street in Manhattan In 1980, Memorial Hospital and the Sloan-Kettering Institute formally merged into a singe entity under the name Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In 1986, the center patented the method of producing and using human G-CSF under the name "
human hematopoietic pluripotent colony stimulating factor" (P-CSF). In 2000, former
NIH director
Harold Varmus became director of MSK. During his tenure, he helped build new facilities, strengthened the bond between MSK's clinical and research arms, and fostered collaborations with other institutions, including Weill-Cornell Medical College and Rockefeller University. In 2009 it opened the
Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center. In 2010,
Craig B. Thompson, an oncologist and researcher, was appointed MSK's president and CEO. The following year, MSK was rated the third most successful nonprofit in terms of FDA-approved drugs and vaccines, behind the National Institutes of Health and the University of California system. In 2012, Thompson appointed
José Baselga as physician-in-chief, who directed the clinical side of MSK. That same year, a collaboration with
IBM's
Watson was announced with the goal of developing new tools and resources to better tailor diagnostic and treatment recommendations for patients. The director of SKI, the research arm of MSK,
Joan Massagué was appointed in 2013. Baselga resigned in September 2018 after information came out regarding millions of dollars he received from pharmaceutical companies without disclosing a financial conflict of interest. In 2015 it opened the Josie Robertson Surgery Center for outpatient surgeries, named in honor of the wife of philanthropist
Julian Robertson. In 2017, the
Food and Drug Administration approved an MSK-developed immunotherapy, CAR-T, for certain applications in
leukemia and
lymphoma. The FDA approved the first academic or commercial tumor identification test MSK-IMPACT in November 2018. In 2020 it opened The
David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care as an outpatient facility. In April 2022, MSK announced a $50 million donation from The Starr Foundation to aid in expanding funding for basic cancer research and discovery science. The donation will establish The Starr Foundation programme for Discovery Science at the Sloan Kettering Institute, the goal of the institute is to drive next-generation cancer breakthroughs. In June 2022, a small trial of an experimental treatment found that tumors vanished in all 14 patients diagnosed with early stage rectal cancer who completed the study by the time it was published. In 2023 MSK received a donation of $400 million from
David Geffen and
Kenneth C. Griffin. In 2025, cancer patient Jennifer Capasso sued MSK over remarks about her
transgender identity while she was under sedation during a surgical procedure in 2022, and subsequent alleged discrimination by the hospital staff. MSK has expanded into regional sites, including in
Westchester County, New York,
Commack,
Hauppauge,
Rockville Centre on
Long Island, and
Bergen County,
Monmouth County, and
Basking Ridge in
New Jersey. MSK currently employs over 1,200 physicians and treats patients with approximately 400 types of cancer annually. ==Associated facilities and programs==