View Larger Image
Leading UAMS cancer researcher, Alan Tackett, Ph.D., reflects on his own father's cancer battle. Image by Evan Lewis

Father’s Cancer Battle Inspires Son’s Research

June 13, 2025 | When Don Tackett learned that he had prostate cancer, his first call was to his son, Alan.

“It was difficult to hear,” said Alan Tackett, Ph.D., a leading UAMS cancer researcher whose life’s work collided with his father’s health that day.

“I’m used to researching cancer, but not my father being a cancer patient,” said Tackett, a distinguished professor at UAMS and deputy director of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute.

“Alan immediately told me to come to UAMS, and we would figure it out,” said Don Tackett, 72, who was a busy bank president at the time. “He has total confidence in the cancer center. I knew I was in the right place.”

Like most prostate cancers, Tackett’s cancer was discovered from a PSA test administered during a routine check-up. The blood test measures prostate-specific antigen, a protein produced by the prostate gland. For men over 70, a PSA level between 0 and 6.5 ng/mL is generally considered normal. Tackett’s PSA was 8.

UAMS urologist Tim Langford, M.D., ordered a CT scan that confirmed a small tumor in the prostate gland that he described as locally advanced. “It wasn’t stage 4, but it had metastasized outside the prostate.”

After consultation with Shi Ming-Tu, M.D., a UAMS medical oncologist who specializes in treating prostate and other genitourinary cancers, Tackett began a six-month course of Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT), a hormone therapy given in pill form that blocks androgens from binding to prostate cancer cells.

“ADT turns down the testosterone in the body, which can fuel the growth of prostate cancer cells,” said Langford. “This therapy is often used to slow down cancer growth or prevent it from spreading.”

Following the hormone treatment, Tackett completed six weeks of proton therapy at the Proton Center of Arkansas, a collaboration between UAMS, Arkansas Children’s, Baptist Health and Proton International that is located in the UAMS Radiation Oncology Center.

Alan Tackett would often walk over from his office and research labs located next door at the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute to be with his father before and after treatments. It was not lost on the younger Tackett the advancements in research and biomedical engineering that had to happen for proton therapy to be available for his father.

Proton therapy research began in the 1950s and is now available as a clinical treatment at only 74 proton centers in the U.S. The Proton Center of Arkansas offers the only proton therapy in the state, allowing Arkansans to be close to home during their daily treatments.

“As cancer researchers, we come to work at the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute every day focused on discovering the next generation of treatments for those impacted by cancer in Arkansas,” Alan Tackett said.  “When it’s your father, it certainly makes you realize the importance of cancer research to provide new treatment options to patients, but more importantly to provide approaches that eliminate cancer all together.

“My father benefitted from a well-established hormone therapy for controlling prostate cancer in combination with a newer treatment — proton therapy. The two treatments eradicated the cancer completely,” he said. “I reflect daily on this personal experience for motivation to continue to support world class cancer research in Arkansas so other Arkansans and their families can realize the benefits and successes of new treatments for generations to come.”

With his father now cancer-free, Tackett is more committed than ever to cancer research. He is working alongside a team of researchers and staff to compile a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Center Support Grant for the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute that will support cancer research and clinical trials for all Arkansans. If successful, NCI Designation for the Cancer Institute will be an achievement 20 years in the making.

Don Tackett is especially proud of his son’s work alongside Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Director Michael Birrer, M.D., Ph.D., to bring in more cancer research dollars with the successful recruitment of some 29 new researchers who have joined the institute since 2020.

But the elder Tackett also isn’t surprised by his son’s achievements. “The intellectual curiosity was there from an early age,” he said. “He was smart, made good grades in school and was always inquisitive.”

After graduating with distinction from Hendrix, Tackett went on to earn his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UAMS. He performed postdoctoral training in cancer epigenetics and proteomics at The Rockefeller University in New York City from 2002-2005. He is a tenured distinguished professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the UAMS College of Medicine and serves as director of the IDeA National Resource for Quantitative Proteomics, the only National Institutes of Health funded resource of its kind in the U.S. In 2016, he became one of the youngest endowed chair recipients at UAMS — the Sharlau Family Endowed Chair for Cancer Research.

For the well-earned titles and accolades, seeing cancer up close changed Tackett’s perspective. “It’s important to fully understand the journey that cancer patients take from navigating the health care system to receiving care. The oncologists at the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute are world-class and the tremendous support staff of nurses and caregivers make it a manageable journey and they provide guidance and encouragement along the way.”

For father and son, cancer brought them closer together. “We talk more than we used to and see each other a lot more. In a way, it’s been a good thing, said Don Tackett

The two men with the same easy smiles are now finding time for shared adventures other than cancer, including Arkansas Razorback sports and fishing.

“It does make you want to reprioritize things,” Tackett said, who retired from a 50-year banking career after his cancer diagnosis. “It makes you closer to your family and the people you love. It really makes you think about life and what’s important.”