George E. Moore, 88, Cancer Researcher, Is Dead
Dr. George E. Moore, a versatile cancer researcher who found an early association between chewing tobacco and mouth cancer while directing the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, a state-financed research center in Buffalo, died on May 19 in Evergreen, Colo. He was 88 and lived in Conifer, Colo.
The cause was bladder cancer, his family said.
In 1954, with colleagues at Roswell Park and the University of Minnesota, Dr. Moore published a pioneering study of male patients with cancer of the mouth, reporting that a majority — 26 of 40 patients — had been tobacco chewers for significant periods of time, many for 15 years or more.
The researchers reported that other chewers, frequently those not found to have cancer, exhibited irritation of the gums as well as mouth lesions, known as leukoplakia, that can be precancerous. At the time, the study became persuasive supporting evidence in making the American Cancer Society’s case about the manifold dangers of using any tobacco products, not just cigarettes.
Dr. Moore, a surgeon and oncologist, directed Roswell Park from 1952 to 1973, combining laboratory research with an active clinical schedule and administrative responsibilities. Under his aegis, the institution’s staff and facilities were greatly expanded.
Dr. Robert K. Ausman, a surgical oncologist and professor of surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, said that Dr. Moore had taken “a sleepy and underfunded institution and turned it into a high-powered center of research,” which now has 250 doctors and occupies a 25-acre urban campus.
In the early 1960s, Dr. Moore and others evaluated the effectiveness of a drug in what was then a novel dual approach to fighting breast cancer, using both surgery and chemicals. Working with Dr. Rudolph Noer of the University of Louisville, Dr. Moore removed breast tumors and then injected patients with a tumor-suppressing drug, T.S.P.A. The drug was successful in preventing the return of cancer in some cases and in extending the time before a recurrence in others, but it also led to early menopause. It was later abandoned in favor of more promising drugs.
In 1966, Dr. Moore led a study that looked at the filter tips of nine brands of cigarettes and pronounced advertising about the effectiveness of some filters as “almost fraudulent.”
The study found that some of the tips allowed markedly larger amounts of tar and nicotine to enter the smoker’s lungs.
“Some smokers are getting some protection,” Dr. Moore concluded, “but others are not getting any, and the consumer has no way of knowing which filter is better.”
He also helped develop an important agent, RPMI-1640, for growing tumor and other cells in the laboratory, enabling researchers to develop cultures without using proteins that might harbor viruses or impurities. He declined to patent the solution, which remains in wide use.
George Eugene Moore was born in Minneapolis and earned his medical degree and a doctorate in surgery from the University of Minnesota. He taught at Minnesota before moving to Roswell Park. After leaving Buffalo, he was a professor of surgery at the University of Colorado from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Dr. Moore is survived by his wife of 63 years, Lorraine; two sons, Allan, of Acton, Mass., and Donald, of Conifer; three daughters, Cathy, of Tucson, Laurie, of Davis, Calif., and Linda, of Golden, Colo.; two brothers, John, of Minneapolis, and Robert, of San Jose, Calif.; a sister, Elizabeth Severson of Minneapolis; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. 