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Sep 23, 2009 5:49 pm US/Central
'U' Research Making Headway In Child Cancer Fight
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ―
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Verneris agrees with the often used analogy that using chemotherapy to fight cancer is like using an atomic bomb to kill a fly. He and his staff have been working to find much more targeted approaches that bring all of the toxic side effects.
CBS
"Your child has cancer," is one of the most dreaded things a parent could ever hear. However, oncologists want you to hear a little good news, that research is gaining ground.
Take one of the most common forms of leukemia; 80 percent of children battling acute lymphoblastic anemia today can expect to be cancer-free five years later.
Still, Dr. Michael Verneris at the University of Minnesota wants to do much better. Research is his hope.
On vital equipment in his Minneapolis campus lab are reminder tags thanking the Children's Cancer Research Fund for providing it.
Research funds are so precious, the doctor, his staff, graduate and secretaries take turns donating blood because it saves them $100 a pint.
Verneris agrees with the often used analogy that using chemotherapy to fight cancer is like using an atomic bomb to kill a fly. He and his staff have been working to find much more targeted approaches that bring all of the toxic side effects.
The oncologist and bone marrow transplant specialist is focusing on two ways to help the 20 percent of children who will have to fight leukemia more than once.
"One [way] is to try to detect leukemia before it actually comes back," he said. "The other is to try to treat leukemia that can't be treated with chemotherapy."
One promising line of research is to add viruses to bone marrow stem cells to energize the disease fighters already in our immune systems, called killer cells, to make them more potent.
"As the name implies the natural killer cells naturally recognize leukemia and naturally kill it and get rid of it," said Verneris. "And we have a number of clinical trials underway to fight other diseases [with this technique] here at the University of Minnesota."
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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