Word: cancer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Samuel Hellman, Fuller American Cancer Society Professor of Radiation Therapy and chairman of the radiation therapy department, explains that the field is oriented more towards research than towards purely clinical considerations of dosages. "There's a tremendous amount of work being done on basic biology of tumor cells to make treatment more specific," he says. Radiation's effects on the DNA, or chemical genetic messenger system, of both malignant and normal cells, for instance, is an important area of basic cancer research, Hellman adds...
Hellman acknowledges the problems of performing clinical research on living cancer victims, noting that "perfectly ethical" experimentation is "difficult but possible." It depends, he says, on frank discussion with the patient of the malady and possible cures...
Isselbacher indicates that such "jurisdictional disputes" between clinicians, oncologists and basic scientists are inveitable, especially because the medical oncologist, like Frei, must have a special temperament just to work in a field where such a large percentage of one's patients die. "The dedication and commitment of treating cancer patients is not easy," Isselbacher explains. "I can appreciate that someone who does not live with cancer patients all the time might prove frustrating to Dr. Frei...
Figures compiled by Isselbacher's committee two years ago indicate that about one-quarter of the Med School's senior faculty was engaged in cancer study, although the percentage was lower for lower ranks in the medical faculty. Isselbacher acknowledges that the extent of federal funding has made cancer research glamorous, and that of reasonable concern is just what will happen to cancer-related, academic departments when the disease is cured or out of fashion...
Hellman says that the concern of basic scientists with the disease will persist because of the distinct nature of the cancer cell. Efforts to distinguish the malignant cell by what was presumed would be its faster rate of replication or by identification of foreign proteins on the cell have proved difficult, he says. Such studies involve virologists (studying viruses), pathologists, and molecular biologists. Other research in the last ten years has suggested that a cancer could be linked to a failure of the body's immune system; when asked about vogues in research, Hellman says, "My prejudice...