One year ago, public television aired a documentary in its Curious series about finding a cure for cancer. I missed it then, but it's finally available on youtube. The show features the first human to test IT-101, a nano-particle designed to destroy cancer tumors without the harmful side effects of chemo.
If you have 30 minutes, you should watch this because:
- It's a great love story: Dr. Mark Davis, a chemical engineering professor at Cal Tech, started researching cancer treatments when his wife, Mary, was treated for breast cancer at the City of Hope more than a decade ago. "There's got to be a better way," she told him when she became violently ill from a chemo called "the red death." He rolled up the sleeves of his lab coat and, unbeknownst to anyone, started researching cancer at the City of Hope library. The research and development for IT-101 grew out of Davis's love for his wife.
- It's a great collaboration: Dr. Davis eventually shared his idea with Dr. Stephen Forman (my doctor) at the City of Hope. Forman went to Davis's office at Cal Tech and saw a rough white-board sketch of the nano-particle (which looks a lot like Sputnik). He sensed right away that the idea could work. City of Hope eventually became a partner with Davis's company and participated in the first clinical trial of IT-101.
- It's a great concept: The IT-101 nano-particle is about a zillion times bigger than the cells of a typical chemo drug. Chemo cells are so small that they seep through the blood vessels into the rest of the body, indiscriminately destroying other fast-growing cells. The nano-particles are like a big MAC truck traveling down the highway of blood - too big to slip through an "off ramp" but not too big to take a detour through the porous blood vessels that crop up around cancer tumors. They can make a direct hit on the cancer cells without harming the rest of the body.
- It's a great success story: Ray's doctors predicted he only had a few months to live after his pancreatic cancer metastasized to his lungs. With nothing to lose, he became the first human guinea pig for for the stage one clinical trial of IT-101 at the City of Hope. The documentary brings us up to six months after treatment, and Ray is still alive and fighting another year later. The trial is over and IT-101 is not yet FDA approved, but Ray is still receiving treatment through compassionate use.
The drug is now in stage two of clinical trials and Davis hopes that it will be approved by the FDA in three to seven years.
Watch it here. It makes me more proud and grateful than ever to be associated with Dr. Forman and the City of Hope.
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