Renowned Pediatric Cancer Researcher Joins Nationwide Children’s Hospital from St. Jude’s – Brings Leading Clinical Trial and Treatment Program to Columbus

Nationwide Children’s Hospital has named Peter J. Houghton, PhD, as director of its Center for Childhood Cancer at The Research Institute.  Before joining Nationwide Children’s Dr. Houghton spent more than 30 years with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where he was chairman of Molecular Pharmacy, director of the Solid Tumor Program Project Grant and co-leader of the Solid Malignancies Program.  Dr. Houghton is a national leader in pediatric cancer research whose expertise covers many areas of study, most notably discovery of new therapies to treat rhabdomyosarcomas, one of the most common and highly malignant cancers occurring among children.

Dr. Houghton will bring the Pediatric Preclinical Testing Program (PPTP) to Nationwide Children’s.  The PPTP is a system he created for prioritizing drugs with potential to treat pediatric cancers and fast tracking these therapies to trials in children.  Supported by the National Cancer Institute, the PPTP involves multiple pediatric research sites throughout the world that have expertise in specific childhood cancers.

“We are fortunate to have recruited a scientist of Dr. Houghton’s caliber,” says John Barnard, MD, president of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. 

In addition to his position at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Dr. Houghton will plan an integral role with the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center and hold a faculty post in the College of Medicine.

For more details, see the release from Nationwide Children’s Hospital.