MD Anderson Cancer Center

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, also known as MD Anderson Cancer Center, is a comprehensive cancer center located in Houston, Texas. It is considered the best hospital in the world for oncology and cancer treatment by Newsweek.

The cancer center is the largest of its kind in the United States and one of the original three comprehensive cancer centers in the country. It is affiliated with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The center’s history can be traced back to Monroe Dunaway Anderson, a cotton trader and banker from Jackson, Tennessee.

He created the MD Anderson Foundation with an initial sum of $300,000, which later received $19 million after his death. In 1941, the Texas Legislature allocated $500,000 to build a cancer hospital and research center, and the Anderson Foundation agreed to match the funds if the hospital was located in Houston and named after Anderson. The hospital operated from converted World War II Army barracks before moving to its current location in 1954. In 2005, there was controversy when the center leased its name to private investors who intended to promote proton therapy, raising concerns about potential incentives to “send as many patients as possible into the program.”