In the Headlines: MD Anderson’s Pisters on doing “something gigantic for pediatric cancer”

MD Anderson and Texas Children’s Hospital have entered into a collaboration to build a $1 billion pediatric cancer hospital. The hospital, tentatively slated to open in 2031 or 2032, is on track to become one of the largest pediatric cancer hospitals in the world. 

Peter WT Pisters, MD Anderson’s president, appears as a special guest in this week’s episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast. Together with Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor of The Cancer Letter, and Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher, Pisters talked about the genesis of the collaboration. 

“I went to several people on my team and I said to them, ‘Hey, I really would like to explore the possibility of a partnership with Texas Children's Hospital.’ And they looked back at me and they said, ‘Peter, that is never going to happen. It's an interesting idea, but it's just impossible,’” Pisters said. 

Pisters’s idea was met with a healthy dose of skepticism, but he was tenacious.  

“I wanted to really look at all the possibilities to do something spectacular, and despite the fact that I was being told that I was wasting my time, I scheduled a lunch with Mark Wallace, who's the CEO of Texas Children's Hospital at that time, and Mark and I had lunch together at MD Anderson. 

“And over lunch, I said, ‘Hey, Mark, you have an incredible program. We have a set of unbelievable capabilities. How about if we did this, we unified the program, we unified educational efforts, we unified research programs, and we built a facility?’

“Mark looked back at me and he said, ‘That is an amazing idea.’ By the end of the lunch, we shook hands and we said, ‘Let's do it.’ And here we are.”

Pisters said that he has known that he wants to make an impact in pediatric oncology for much of his career—almost immediately upon accepting the role of president of MD Anderson. 

“In August of 2017 when the Regents gave me the privilege of leading this organization, 30 minutes after I'd been notified, I thought to myself, "I really want to do something gigantic for pediatric cancer." Pisters said. “And, eight years later, it's now a reality, and this is just spectacular and phenomenal for children with cancer.”

Stories mentioned this week include:

• How MD Anderson and Texas Children’s made plans to build a $1 billion pediatric cancer hospital—one of the world’s largest 

• At House hearing, Democrats clash with RFK Jr. over “radical obstruction of congressional oversight,” vaccine policies—Rep. Lori Trahan: “People are going to die”

• Building cancer care resilience through international observerships: Lessons from Ukraine

• As cancer patients use AI chatbots, dangers lurk—but new safeguards can help

• Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay to retire as acting head of CDER at FDA

• RFK Jr.’s new committee votes on vaccine recommendations, despite Sen. Cassidy’s call for meeting delay

A transcript of this podcast is available: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20260701-pisters/