Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) has a tradition of taking on the impossible — and delivering. Since its founding 125 years ago as the first medical school of the then-wild frontier of the Pacific Northwest, OHSU has challenged the status quo in pursuit of better care and quality of life for the people of the region and beyond.

OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute Director, Brian Druker, M.D., exemplifies this radical approach. Dr. Druker altered the course of cancer research, and ushered in the era of personalized cancer medicine, by proving for the first time that cancer cells could be shut down by disabling the molecules that drive their growth without harming healthy cells. The drug that resulted from that research, Gleevec®, revolutionized how cancer is treated and inspired a new wave of exploration of treatments that target cancer-causing molecules.