Our History

The History of Sanford Burnham Prebys

In 1976, William Harold Fishman, MD, (1914-2001) and his wife Lillian Waterman Fishman (1915-2013)  drove the family car from Boston to La Jolla — a journey of 3,012 miles and a lifetime. 

Fishman had retired the previous year from his post as professor, director and founder of the Cancer Research Center at Tufts University in Boston. Lillian  had been his research partner for more than four decades, noted for her own scientific contributions, which included helping to decipher placental alkaline phosphatases, enzymes involved in normal cell development that provided new context for understanding the abnormalities of cancer.

Both Fishmans had enjoyed long and distinguished scientific careers, but they were not yet at the end of the road. They wanted to continue and advance their promising research in onco-developmental biology, exploiting proteins involved in embryonic development as tumor markers.

“My husband chaired an International Scientific Symposium in 1975 in La Jolla,” Lillian Fishman told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 2013, a few months before her death at age 98.

“He was so impressed with the environment and the burgeoning scientific community on the Torrey Pines Mesa that he suggested we take a vacation out west. Little did I know that we were about to embark on a new career in our mid-sixties….Bill was facing mandatory retirement….The head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) came to our home in Boston and convinced Bill to continue his research. That was all it took.

“Armed with our dreams, a few frozen specimens and one $180,000 grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), we headed to San Diego. At the time, The Salk Institute, The Scripps Research Institute, Scripps Institute of Oceanography and UCSD were here. It wasn’t like Boston, with 300-plus colleges feeding into the workforce, but there was enough good science going on in the area that we knew it would work.

In La Jolla, the Fishmans rented a two-bedroom apartment, built a laboratory in the spare room and called it the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation. The grant from the NCI allowed them to lease space in a vacant building, build a better laboratory out of spare parts and hire five employees.

“When we started the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation in our retirement years, we lived it. We ate it. We slept it. It was a part of us,” said Lillian. “We were determined to find solutions that would help cure human diseases.”

In the 1970s, cancer was just becoming a huge and pressing matter of public health. In 1970, cancer had officially become the nation’s second leading cause of death. A year later, President Nixon signed the National Cancer Act of 1971, famously declaring a “war on cancer” that would create vast and deep new resources for building an anti-cancer research and treatment machine.  

In 1979, the NCI awarded the Foundation with a two-year grant that allowed it to expand its facilities on the Mesa. That same year, Erkki Ruoslahti, MD, PhD, a renowned cancer researcher, joined the Foundation as scientific director.

Under Ruoslahti’s guidance, the Foundation quickly became a leading cancer research hub, particularly in cellular adhesion and gene regulation. Recognizing its advances, the NCI designated the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation as a Basic Laboratory Cancer Center in 1981, one of only seven in the nation.

Ruoslahti, who would go on to win numerous awards and recognition for his research (including the 2022 Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, sometimes called “America’s Nobels”) became president and CEO in 1989. The Foundation’s work began to expand and diversify to other research areas and diseases. 

“I’ve spent the best part of my life with the Institute, building it up. It was an incredible experience to be able to do that. From a handful of people, we grew to a major institution. I consider it partly my baby, and I’m very attached to it,” said Ruoslahti, who stepped down as president and CEO in 2002 but remains as a Distinguished Professor Emeritus.

In 1996, the Foundation was renamed The Burnham Institute after San Diego businessman Malin Burnham, who gave a $10 million gift with an anonymous donor.

“Scientists in those years were basically doing their science in a vacuum because they didn’t want their neighbor to see what they were doing. They thought, ‘They might steal my secrets,’” explains Burnham. “The Fishmans were just the opposite. They were all family. You were part of their team.”

In 2007, philanthropist T. Denny Sanford gave the Institute $20 million through Sanford Health, the largest rural health system in the U.S. and a longtime beneficiary of Sanford. The gift helped the Burnham Institute create the Sanford Children’s Health Research Center.

Three years later, Sanford donated $50 million and the Institute became the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute. And in 2015, the name changed again to the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, honoring a $100 million gift from local philanthropist Conrad Prebys (1933-2016).

The name has since been simplified to the current Sanford Burnham Prebys. 

In recent decades, Sanford Burnham Prebys has established deep roots and an exemplary reputation across scientific disciplines, topics and endeavors.

In 2009, for example, Prebys made a $10 million investment to create a world-class drug discovery center.
“I lost four close friends to cancer last year, one to a type of leukemia I didn’t even know existed,” Prebys said at the time. “I have been very blessed in my life, and sometimes I wonder why. The only answer I can come up with is that I’m here to do some good in the world.”

The Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics today is the nation’s leading non-profit drug discovery center, employing innovative technologies to identify and develop new molecules and compounds that may form the basis for next-generation drugs in coordination with academic, public and industry partners.

The future of scientific research was addressed, in part, by the establishment of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 2006 to educate and train new, diverse cadres of scientists.

“Scientific discovery is a rewarding profession, and the future is now with new generations of scientists learning their trade at a time of emerging, innovative tools and technologies that are expanding the acquisition of knowledge at unprecedented rates,” said Alessandra Sacco, PhD, professor and dean.

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Further Reading

Learn more about the Institute’s history in the eBook “Development of a California Research Organization: Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute,” written by Eva Engvall, PhD, MD; Francesca Marassi, PhD; Nancy Beddingfield and Nina Fishman, MEd.

Available for purchase on Amazon. Proceeds from the book sales go to The Fishman Fund, which supports postdoctoral students with two-year fellowships.