Draft:Michael Amylon

Amylon earned his A.B. in Biology from Brown University in 1972, followed by an M.D. from Stanford University in 1976. After obtaining his M.D., he completed his internship in Pediatrics at Stanford University Hospital in 1977 and subsequently finished his residency at the same institution in 1979, followed by a fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. Additionally, from 1985 to 1986, he pursued post-fellowship training in clinical bone marrow transplantation at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.^[1]

Amylon began his academic career as an acting assistant professor of Pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1981, later becoming assistant professor in 1982, and associate professor in 1989. He was subsequently appointed associate professor of Pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford from 1995 to 2001 and at the University of California, San Francisco from 1998 to 2000. In 2001, he became a professor at Stanford, and since 2003,^[1] he has held the title of professor emeritus.^[2] During this time, he also took on administrative roles at Stanford, including as director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Service at Children's Hospital from 1986 to 1991, and at Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital from 1991 to 2003.^[1]

Amylon was appointed to the board of directors of the Children's Oncology Camping Association International (COCA-I) from 2003 to 2019,^[1] and was elected president for the 2016-2018 term. He is chair of the COCA-I Gold Ribbon Accreditation Committee.^[3]

Amylon's research has centered on the genetic foundation and treatment options in pediatric oncology.^[4] He found that combining cyclosporine, methotrexate, and prednisone as part of prophylactic treatment significantly lowered the occurrence of acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) compared to cyclosporine with prednisone alone.^[5] Correspondingly, in a group study, he demonstrated that 200 cGy of total body irradiation (TBI) was enough for engraftment in severe aplastic anemia (SAA) patients with matched unrelated donor transplants.^[6] He also contributed to a pediatric study of children with relapsed or resistant Hodgkin lymphoma, and showed that extranodal disease, mediastinal relapse, and primary refractory disease predicted worse survival outcomes.^[7]

Investigating the genetic basis of cancerous diseases among children, Amylon and colleagues reported that around 20% of children with pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB) had relatives with neoplasia, most commonly kidney cystic nephroma and rhabdomyosarcoma.^[8] In related research with the Pediatric Oncology Group, he found that in children with T-cell lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), only a normal karyotype or chromosomal change was linked to better outcomes,^[9] while in B-cell lineage ALL (B-ALL), chromosomal abnormalities show a consistent relationship with treatment response.^[10] He further observed that even though the TAL1 gene is active in about 25% of T-ALL cases, translocation to the T‑cell receptor regions accounts for activation in only 3% of these cases.^[11] His research examined the relationship between genetic polymorphisms in CYP3A4, CYP3A5, and NQO1 and the risk of developing therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia (t-AML) or myelodysplastic syndromes (t-MDS) in children treated for ALL, and found no independent association of these variants with disease development.^[12]

Amylon also assessed the impact of health-related quality of life for cancer patients and their families and demonstrated that participation in summer camps improved emotional wellbeing, self-esteem, and social functioning among families and siblings of cancer patients,^[13] likely due to the opportunity for recreation, peer support, and respite from their lives at home.^[14]

• 1991 – Golden Sword Award, American Cancer Society^[1]
• 1998 – Humanitarian Award, World of Children^[15]

• Chao, Nelson J.; Schmidt, Gerhard M.; Niland, Joyce C.; Amylon, Michael D.; Dagis, Andrew C.; Long, Gwynn D.; Nademanee, Auayporn P.; Negrin, Robert S.; O'Donnell, Margaret R.; Parker, Pablo M.; Smith, Eileen P.; Snyder, David S.; Stein, Anthony S.; Wong, Ruby M.; Blume, Karl G.; Forman, Stephen J. (October 21, 1993). "Cyclosporine, Methotrexate, and Prednisone Compared with Cyclosporine and Prednisone for Prophylaxis of Acute Graft-versus-Host Disease". New England Journal of Medicine. 329 (17): 1225–1230. doi:10.1056/NEJM199310213291703. ISSN 0028-4793. PMID 8413388.
• Priest, John R.; Watterson, Jan; Strong, Louise; Huff, Vicki; Woods, William G.; Byrd, Rebecca L.; Friend, Stephen H.; Newsham, Irene; Amylon, Michael D.; Pappo, Alberto; Mahoney, Donald H.; Langston, Claire; Heyn, Ruth; Kohut, Gloria; Freyer, David R.; Bostrom, Bruce; Richardson, Mary S.; Barredo, Julio; Dehner, Louis P. (February 1, 1996). "Pleuropulmonary blastoma: A marker for familial disease". The Journal of Pediatrics. 128 (2): 220–224. doi:10.1016/S0022-3476(96)70393-1. ISSN 0022-3476. PMID 8636815.
• Schneider, Nancy R.; Carroll, Andrew J.; Shuster, Jonathan J.; Pullen, D. Jeanette; Link, Michael P.; Borowitz, Michael J.; Camitta, Bruce M.; Katz, Julie A.; Amylon, Michael D. (October 1, 2000). "New recurring cytogenetic abnormalities and association of blast cell karyotypes with prognosis in childhood T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia: a Pediatric Oncology Group report of 343 cases". Blood. 96 (7): 2543–2549. doi:10.1182/blood.V96.7.2543. ISSN 0006-4971. PMID 11001909.
• Deeg, H. Joachim; Amylon, Michael D.; Harris, Richard E.; Collins, Robert; Beatty, Patrick G.; Feig, Stephen; Ramsay, Norma; Territo, Mary; Khan, Shakila P.; Pamphilon, Derwood; Leis, José F.; Burdach, Stefan; Anasetti, Claudio; Hackman, Robert; Storer, Barry; Mueller, Beth (April 1, 2001). "Marrow transplants from unrelated donors for patients with aplastic anemia: Minimum effective dose of total body irradiation". Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. 7 (4): 208–215. doi:10.1053/bbmt.2001.v7.pm11349807. ISSN 1083-8791. PMID 11349807.
• Lieskovsky, YeeYie E.; Donaldson, Sarah S.; Torres, Mylin A.; Wong, Ruby M.; Amylon, Michael D.; Link, Michael P.; Agarwal, Rajni (November 15, 2004). "High-Dose Therapy and Autologous Hematopoietic Stem-Cell Transplantation for Recurrent or Refractory Pediatric Hodgkin's Disease: Results and Prognostic Indices". Journal of Clinical Oncology. 22 (22): 4532–4540. doi:10.1200/JCO.2004.02.121. ISSN 0732-183X. PMID 15542804.