I think this article in my local paper might be of great interest to all of us on the message board. It's good to know that such research is being pursued.

Cancer Treatment Can Have Dire Side Effects

Some quotes:

Chemotherapy helped cure Melinda Dutton's breast cancer, but it left her with a badly damaged heart.

Bruce Ogden, who survived prostate cancer that had spread to his bones, lives with feminizing changes to his body from drugs he took to block testosterone that would have accelerated the malignancy.

And Sally Coplin is almost totally deaf and can't produce saliva. Radiation treatment caused that, even as it rid her nasal passages of spiderweb-like tumors.

Stories like these are what keep stem cell scholar and medical student Joyce Ma up late, mulling theories she hopes will make traditional, often toxic cancer therapies obsolete one day.

"We are harnessing the power of the human body's ability to heal itself," said Ma, an M.D./Ph.D. candidate at UC Davis who has pending two stem cell-related patents. "If we help it recognize the bad cells, the body will take care of the rest."

The revolutionary concept is to target and eliminate cells that cause tumors to regrow, without harming healthy tissue. Ma's work represents an emerging focus of stem cell research: using cells to unlock the mechanism of diseases so they can be more effectively treated.

<snip>

Joyce Ma, the 33-year-old UC Davis physician-scientist trainee, wells with emotion when she thinks that one day she might help develop therapies that spare cancer patients the debilitating side effects.

Ma was 4 years old when she started tagging along to the hospital with her mother and older sister, who had stubborn, noncancerous facial tumors that made talking and eating difficult.

She had lots of questions for the doctors, who patiently explained to her the concept of cell growth. By fifth grade, Ma was poring over science books, memorizing the periodic table and imagining possible cures for her sister.

"Every time I see another patient who is sick, I think, 'I have to go back and work harder,' " she said. "The sooner we get this done, how many people will not have to suffer?"

I read the article. It was terrible the number of things that happened to Melinda Dutton. She had enormous courage to have another child in the midst of it all.

On the indiscriminate nature of chemo and r/t, the most disturbing thing was the origin of chemo in WW1 mustard gas!

Dr Ma sounds a wonderful person.

Martyn