Part I: Dr. Judah Folkman - "The Determined Father of Antiangiogenesis"
What a “heretic” surgeon’s 30-year fight against cancer reveals about the research system we’re dismantling, and asks "Would his pioneering cancer research be funded today?"
I vividly recall reading the front-page New York Times article, “A Cautious Awe Greets Drugs That Eradicate Tumors in Mice" (May 3rd, 1998). I was having lunch and reading the newspaper in St. Catherine’s Park across from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where I was completing my research fellowship in psychosocial oncology. The headline immediately grabbed my attention. The article explained how Dr. Judah Folkman and his Harvard lab had identified a molecule in mouse urine that prevents the formation of new blood vessels, which normally supply tumors with nutrients needed for growth. I remember sitting there, reading carefully, occasionally looking up at the sky, and laughing, murmuring, “Mouse urine. Really? Wow. Now that’s just wild.” Although ostracized by the oncology community early on, Dr. Folkman coined the term “antiangiogenesis,” and this groundbreaking discovery has transformed current approaches to treating cancer and other diseases. I will never forget reading that article, as it broadened my perspective and made me realize that even when faced with obstacles, the seemingly impossible can sometimes be achieved.
Today, we are living through a strange contradiction. On one screen, the headlines promise a golden age: AI platforms that fold proteins, design molecules, and read tumors with a fluency that would have seemed like science fiction a decade ago—tools genuinely poised to reshape how we treat both novel and long-standing diseases. On the other screen, the machinery that turns wild ideas into actual medicines is being starved. Over the course of 2025 and into 2026, the federal government cut billions from biomedical research, capped the funds that keep university labs running, terminated thousands of grants, and let a 43-day shutdown freeze the entire grant-review system.
It raises an uncomfortable question, and it’s worth asking plainly:
In a research climate that prizes immediate, demonstrable return on investment and dismisses high-risk, “fringe” theories as a waste of money, would Judah Folkman—the surgeon who founded an entire field of cancer medicine—ever have gotten his shot?
Folkman is the cleanest possible test case, because for the better part of three decades, almost everyone thought he was wrong. This is a story about how transformative medicine actually gets made, and about what we stand to lose when we forget.
Read Part II: Dr. Judah Folkman and the Heretic Who Was Right
I have authored and edited this article. AI has been used to assist with background research and formatting. Sources include reporting and analysis from The ASCO Post, OncLive, STAT News, NPR, JAMA Internal Medicine, JAMA Health Forum, the AACR, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Nature, and the PNAS and Cell retrospectives on Folkman's career. Figures on the 2025–26 cuts reflect the best available reporting as of mid-2026 and remain contested in some particulars, notably between independent researchers and HHS.