In 1945 Sloan-Kettering Institute was founded as a cancer research center, in the hopes that an industrial approach to research would yield a cure. It opened in 1948. While still director of Memorial, from 1945 until 1953 Rhoads also served as the first director of the Sloan-Kettering Institute. He was "praised by Memorial for his 'essential role in the evolution of the hospital into a modern medical center.'" As director of Sloan-Kettering, he had oversight as well over research related to Department of Defense radiation experiments through 1954. For instance, that year, a Sloan-Kettering team began a multi-year study of "Post-Irradiation Syndrome in Humans."