[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 40 (Tuesday, March 3, 2026)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E180]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    RECOGNIZING DR. JAMES R. DOWNING

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                            HON. STEVE COHEN

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 3, 2026

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the pioneering 
children's cancer researcher Dr. James R. Downing, the President and 
CEO of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, who is 
stepping down from twelve years in that role to return to the 
laboratory. As CEO, he has led a $12.9 billion commitment to accelerate 
research and treatments of catastrophic pediatric diseases. His own 
laboratory research has focused on the genetic basis of cancers. As 
CEO, he was instrumental in creating the Pediatric Cancer Genome 
Project, a genetic sequencing effort to discover why childhood cancers 
arise, spread and resist treatment.
  As the leader of St. Jude, he has been a driving force behind 
improving survival rates of cancer and other catastrophic diseases 
internationally by creating a global alliance of over 400 health care 
institutions assuring children around the world have access to the best 
and most-advanced therapies and care. Overseeing the management of the 
St. Jude, Dr. Downing has been recognized for its outstanding workplace 
culture and for being a forward-thinking workplace for diversity and 
for women. Dr. Downing has received numerous honors, including election 
to the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts 
and Sciences, as well as receiving the Memorial Sloan Kettering Prize, 
the E. Donnall Thomas Lecture and Prize from the American Society of 
Hematology, and the Pediatric Oncology Award from the American Society 
of Clinical Oncology. Dr. Downing received his undergraduate and 
medical degrees from the University of Michigan. He joined St. Jude in 
1986 after training in anatomic pathology at Washington University in 
St. Louis and a fellowship in hematopathology at the University of 
Florida at Gainesville. In 2016, he was named to the Blue Ribbon Panel 
of then-Vice President Joe Biden's National Cancer Moonshot Initiative. 
In 2013, he was a finalist for Time magazine's list of the World's Most 
Influential People. He is a co-author on numerous medical journal 
articles on childhood cancers and treatment.
  While we await the naming of his successor as CEO this summer, I wish 
Dr. Downing well as he returns to the laboratory at St. Jude and hope 
that he continues to make significant progress in finding preventions, 
treatments, and cures for cancer, which will benefit millions of people 
around the world.

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