text: Southern Research cancer research program was started in 1946 with a $25,000 philanthropic donation from Mobile, AL businessman, Ben E. May.
  The organization's scientists are credited with the discovery of seven Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved anti-cancer drugs, including carmustine, lomustine, dacarbazine developed by Y Fulmer Shealy, fludarabine, amifostine, clofarabine and the latest pralatrexate (approved in 2009). Notable cancer researchers who worked at the institute include Y Fulmer Shealy Howard E. Skipper, John Montgomery, Frank Schabel and Lee Bennett Jr.
  Clofarabine is a nucleoside discovered at Southern Research that eventually received FDA approval. Clofarabine, a second-generation nucleoside analogue received accelerated approval from the US FDA at the end of 2004 for the treatment of paediatric patients 1–21 years old with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukaemia after at least two prior regimens. It is the first such drug to be approved for paediatric leukaemia in more than a decade, and the first to receive approval for paediatric use before adult use.
  Pralatrexate is another anticancer drug whose discovery was a result of contributions from medicinal chemists at Southern Research along with chemists from SRI International and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The US FDA announced the approval of pralatrexate in 2009 for the treatment of relapsed or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL).
  Research on drugs of this class began at SRI International in the 1950s. Pralatrexate was first prepared there by Dr. Joseph DeGraw and Dr. William Colwell. Dr. Robert Piper at Southern Research synthesized the key starting material (a bromomethyl compound) which was used to prepare the intermediates needed to make multigram quantities of high purity final compound.  Multiple issued patents on this compound are jointly owned by Southern Research, SRI International  and Memorial Sloan Kettering and licensed to Allos Therapeutics.