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DECEMBER 8, 2015 | Volume 28 No. 147
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Accused in shooting will stand trial
Dr. Marianne Sadar, a senior scientist at the BC Cancer Agency researching prostate cancer, stands in her Vancouver laboratory in this file photo. Sadar and her team’s years-long research has led to creation of a drug the team calls EPI-506, one that shrank prostate tumours in mice without apparent side effects. DANIEL PI PHOTO
TIM PETRUK
STAFF REPORTER
tim@kamloopsthisweek.com
THE QUEST OF AN ENTIRE CAREER DALE BASS
STAFF REPORTER
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M
arianne Sadar remembers her biggest “a-ha!” moment. One of her lab assistants brought her pictures of mice being treated for cancer. “And they were disappearing. The tumours were disappearing,” said Sadar, once a student at George Hilliard elementary and NorKam secondary before becoming a doctor and scientist determined to find a cure for prostate cancer. “I couldn’t sleep that week.” That one moment, as she ran around the lab — “actually, I ran through the building,” she said — showing others, was when
Sadar knew the drug she has spent 17 years working on was going to move from the rodent to human trials. It also led to the realization her part in the quest is done for now. “I still don’t know if the first patient has been dosed,” Sadar said of the clinical trials the BC Cancer Agency and the University of British Columbia began last week. The new drug was drawn from a compound found in a marine sponge from Papua New Guinea. Sponges like it contain many chemical components that make them a source of new drug development The one identified by Sadar and her team — which has included dozens of others working on the same goal since she began her research in 1998 — led to
creation of a drug the team calls EPI-506, one that shrank prostate tumours in mice without apparent side effects. “It’s been a long time,” Sadar said. “My entire career. All my eggs are in this basket. I’ve been determined to get it up to clinical testing and now I’m there.” She hasn’t let go completely, though. After spending all those years working for the cure — checking steps three, four, five and six times because, she said, people and other scientists are always waiting to poke holes in it — Sadar now will look for new problems as the clinical trials go forward. “Cancer is devious,” she said, noting the disease works to develop resistance to treatment. See CANCER DRUG, A2
SANTA’S ALPINE VISIT
The man accused of shooting a Kamloops RCMP corporal 12 months ago has been ordered by a judge to stand trial. Security was ramped up at the Kamloops Law Courts yesterday for Kenneth Knutson’s preliminary inquiry. The 37-year-old is facing five charges, including attempted murder, stemming from the December 2014 shooting of Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Jean-Rene Michaud. RCMP CPL. J.R. MICHAUD Deputy sheriffs stood guard outside Courtroom 3D armed with metal detectors, screening people as they entered the room. An additional two sheriffs were posted inside. More than 10 police officers, Michaud and Supt. Brad Mueller included, were also at the courthouse for the brief hearing, which was KENNETH KNUTSON slated to last four days, but wrapped up in just over one hour. Michaud had been expected to testify at some point in the hearing, but that did not happen. Instead, he spent the hearing behind closed doors in an interview room adjacent to the courtroom. See TRIAL DATE, A4
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