A PUB DINNER, LONDON
Some of the
verbal flak accompanying the creation of the (Paul Allen funded) new Swedish
Cancer Institute* involved an effort to prevent cancer as well as cure
it. To my way of thinking, that’s a very
long shot. Cancer occurs when something
genetic goes haywire, which mostly happens when something goes wrong with the (very complicated) cellular reproduction process. I don’t
see how we can influence such a basic biological mechanism, for good.
For bad, we have no trouble – think smoking, for instance.
But the
other stated goals of the new Institute – early detection and treatment - are
humanly attainable, I think. I tried to
help out with an early detection of ovarian cancer program a few years ago, at
Fred Hutch. Sad to say, we didn’t
accomplish our main goal, although not for lack of trying. The effort then seemed to be to establish a
correlation between the prevalence of OVCA and certain bio-objects in the blood;
I think they may have been proteins, but as I am a dumb geologist and not a
dabbler in occult bio-science I was never sure.
Should have worked, but largely didn’t.
Too bad.
Anyway, one
PI on that project was Dr. Charles Drescher, M.D. Chuck, as we called him, is
one of America’s top gynecological oncologists.
He also will be affiliated with the new Swedish Cancer Institutes. That is very good news; Chuck is the real
deal. If you need help, look him up.
https://schedule.swedish.org/directory/gynecologic-oncology/1101-madison-street-157927-787309
*That’s
Swedish, as in the Seattle hospital, not the country
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