[Jules Bordet Institute: past, present and future]

Since the end of the 19th century, the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Conseil des Hospices, in charge of health problems in the city of Brussels, assume the responsibility of cancer patients. A first cancer clinic is organized in 1906 followed in 1925 by the building of a cancer pavilion on the site of the Hôpital Brugmann. In 1935 the building of a new more important cancer institute is decided by the Commission d'Assistance Publique and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The Institut Bordet was inaugurated in 1939. In 1950, the appointment of Albert Claude, future Nobel Prize, as scientific director of the Institute inaugurated a period of important and growing medical and scientific activities. The Institute became a multidisciplinary center with medical departments (clinical biology, medicine, pathology, radiodiagnosis, radiotherapy, surgery) and investigation laboratories. There is a project to build a new Institute on the campus of the Hôpital Erasme.