ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - June 28, 2016) - The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has selected Haakon Ragde, MD, as its 2016 Honorary Member, the highest honor ASTRO bestows on distinguished cancer researchers, scientists and leaders in disciplines other than radiation oncology, radiobiology or radiation physics. Ragde will be inducted as the 2016 ASTRO Honorary Member during an awards ceremony at ASTRO's 58th Annual Meeting, September 25-28, 2016, in Boston.

The first ASTRO Honorary Membership was awarded in 1989. Ragde is the 33rd physician to be chosen for the honor.
"Dr. Ragde is a luminary in the field of medicine," said ASTRO Chair Bruce D. Minsky, MD, FASTRO. "His work has become the standard of care in a number of areas. As a board certified urologist, he has an impressive array of achievements, including introducing seed implantation for prostate cancer into the U.S., introducing transrectal ultrasonography and introducing the transrectal ultrasound-guided prostate biopsy method now used. He also took part in bone marrow transplant research that earned researcher E. Donnall Thomas, MD, the Nobel Peace Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1990. ASTRO thanks Dr. Ragde for his outstanding accomplishments."


Ragde has received numerous honors and awards, including first prizes for scientific presentations at urological society meetings. He holds a professorship in urology at the University of Virginia, his alma mater. He has authored more than 100 scientific papers, written several textbook chapters and been invited to speak across the globe at scientific conferences and universities.

He was born in Norway and immigrated to the U.S. in 1948. He served in the U.S. Army as an artillery forward observer with the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division in the Korean War, receiving a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars with V and Oak Leaf Clusters and a Purple Heart.

Following his service, he entered the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1952, where he graduated with a medical degree in 1957. He completed post-graduate training at McGill University in Montreal, Canada; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York; Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland; and Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

He accepted a staff position in 1965 in general surgery and urology at the University of Washington. There, Ragde and a colleague performed the first successful kidney transplants in the state of Washington. However, following these procedures, he was unable to raise money for continuing research. So when Thomas, the hematology professor who would ultimately win the Nobel Prize, approached Ragde with an offer to join Thomas' bone marrow transplantation research team, Ragde agreed.

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