Joseph F. Fraumeni Jr.

{{short description|American physician and cancer researcher}}

{{Infobox scientist

|name = Joseph F. Fraumeni Jr.

|image ={{#Property:P18}}

|birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1933|4|1}}

|birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

|nationality =

|field =

|work_institutions = National Cancer Institute

|alma_mater = Harvard College
Duke University
Harvard School of Public Health

|known_for =

|influences =

|influenced =

|prizes = Charles S. Mott Prize

|footnotes =

}}

Joseph F. Fraumeni Jr. (born April 1, 1933) is an American physician and cancer researcher. Born in Boston,{{cite journal |doi=10.1097/EDE.0b013e3182a56987|title=A Conversation with Joseph F. Fraumeni, Jr|year=2013|last1=Hoover|first1=Robert N.|journal=Epidemiology|volume=24|issue=6|pages=929–933|pmid=24076995|s2cid=238402678 |doi-access=free}} he received an A.B. from Harvard College, an M.D. from Duke University, and an M.Sc. in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed his medical residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He then joined the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health in 1962 as a commissioned officer of the U.S. Public Health Service, becoming the founding Director of the [http://dceg.cancer.gov Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics] in 1995. He stepped down from this position in 2012 to become a senior investigator and advisor to the National Cancer Institute.

One of Fraumeni's research accomplishments was the identification in 1969 with Frederick Pei Li of four families with an increased susceptibility to multiple forms of cancer in children and young adults.Li FP, Fraumeni JF Jr. Soft-tissue sarcomas, breast cancer, and other neoplasms. A familial syndrome? Ann Intern Med 1969:71:747-752. Tracing these families and 20 others for twenty yearsLi FP, Fraumeni JF Jr., Mulvihill JJ, et al. A cancer family syndrome in twenty-four kindreds. Cancer Res 1988:48:5358-5362. led to the characterization of what became known as Li–Fraumeni syndrome and the discovery in 1990 of inherited mutations of the tumor suppressor gene, p53, as the underlying mechanism in most affected families.Malkin D, Li FP, Strong LC, Fraumeni, JF Jr., Nelson CE, Kim DH, Kassel J, Gryka MA, Bischoff FZ, Tainsky, MA, Friend SH. Germ line p53 mutations in a familial syndrome of breast cancer, sarcomas, and other neoplasms. Science 1990:250: 1233–1238.