PROFILES IN RESEARCH EXCELLENCE: Dr. Michael S. Goldberg

Linda and Patches

both gone

 

As you will know if you read these blogs regularly (and at least six of you do), I have become greatly dissatisfied with NIH funding mechanism(s), and ever more strongly convinced of the absolute necessity of independent funding mechanisms to spur innovative cancer research.  The Marsha Rivkin Center has several such programs, aimed explicitly at projects that may make a major breakthrough, even an important paradigm shift.  (The culture pervading NIH/NCI grants rewards “safe” research that everyone strongly suspects will yield  moderate -  very moderate – improvement in some established therapy.)  Two MRC programs target support to young scientists eager to try something new in the field of ovarian cancer.  These are the Scientific Scholar Awards ($60,000 for one year) and Pilot Grants ($75,000 for one year.)  Frankly, I can’t discern much of a  difference between the two, although there must be one, at least in the minds of the grant-givers.  Anyway, there were three Scientific Scholar Awards given in 2014.  Disappointingly, from my point of view – all three went to members of large, prestigious, (but well equipped!) cancer-fighting organizations.  Of the three I like best the proposal by Dr. Michael S. Goldberg.

After some Web searching I tracked down Dr. Goldberg’s vita.  Apparently he  is about 37 years old (or younger, judging from his photograph).  Dr. Goldberg received his B.S. at the University of Toronto, a M. Phil from Cambridge University in the U.K., and a Ph.D. from MIT.  Then he post-doc’d at M.I.T.  for several years before settling into his present position; Assistant Professor at both Harvard University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.  You have to admit: he is well connected and equipped, and blest with a super-abundance of sharp colleagues.. Tenure awaits.   He already has two post-docs working with him (I had three in my whole career). As of about 2012 he had 16 publications.  From the point-of-view of eradicating ovarian cancer, Dr. Goldberg is a catch, and the existence of young people like him gives me much encouragement.  .

What Dr. Goldberg is trying to do is develop nano-particles to penetrate “walls” set up by cancer cells trying to protect themselves from agents of the immune system.  (Think of cannon balls measured in billionths of a meter.)  As you all surely  know already, cancer cells can “evolve” to recover from conventional chemotherapy.  Immune cells, however, can evolve right along with them.  Thus it is vital to get them (the immune cells) through the cancer wall.  Maybe packing them into  Dr. Goldberg’s tiny missiles will do the trick.  Let us hope.