For more than 70 years at the University of Chicago Medicine, the brightest minds in medicine have been changing how physicians and scientists think about, diagnose and treat cancer
THE EVOLUTION OF CANCER Anjuli Nayak, MD, of Bloomington, Ill., survived an aggressive form of leukemia because of a cancer treatment sparked by a scientific breakthrough 40 years ago in a University of Chicago laboratory. Janet Rowley, MD, discovered the first recurring chromosomal abnormality linked to cancer. That eventually led to the development of targeted therapies for cancer, including the drug that helped save Nayak’s life. See Nayak’s story on page 8.
PAST Janet Rowley, MD, changed the way scientists think about cancer and how to treat it. Her discovery in 1972 that cancer is a genetic disease opened the door to effective targeted therapies for leukemia, lymphoma and other forms of cancer. At 87, Rowley continues to be an active cancer researcher at the University of Chicago Medicine and a mentor to future groundbreaking physician-scientists. She is the winner of many prestigious awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor bestowed in the U.S. ARE YOU SURPRISED WHERE YOUR DISCOVERY IN 1972 HAS LED US?
Yes. When I identified the chromosomal translocation in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), what these
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genetic anomalies really did in the cell was completely unknown. We didn’t know whether they were in exactly the same point in different patients. We didn’t know why chromosomes were breaking in these patients. We learned later that they involved specific genes. That you could target those genes with specific treatments would have been a wild fantasy at the time. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST EXCITING/PROMISING AVENUE OF CANCER RESEARCH TODAY?
Genetic changes in tumors are different in different patients. Therefore, the treatments may be different. For patients, it’s critical that their physician knows the genetic changes in their tumor and understands what this means for treatment. Certainly the targeted therapy for CML is one of the most outstanding examples, but the new strategies for identifying critical genes are important.