Amazing news from the field of cancer research today. From The Wall Street Journal:
For the first time in the history of treating cancer, gene therapy has apparently succeeded in shrinking and even eradicating large, metastatic tumors.
The therapy worked in only two of 17 patients who were treated. But many researchers are hailing the study, which was published Thursday in the online edition of Science, as groundbreaking because it provides compelling evidence in human patients that gene therapy can be effective against one of the toughest challenges in medicine: terminal cancer.
I have family and friends who’ve battled this disease, some of whom have actually won. Any news that any treatments at all have been even the least bit effective in treating cancer is exciting news.
I was thinking just now that this is one of the things that makes having children so exciting: The possibility that Ava might someday see a cure for cancer in her lifetime. A cure that might even save her life or the life of someone she loves. It’s heady stuff. She’s going to see so much over the next decades. A lot of it will be bad, odds are, but there’s bound to be plenty of good, too. I can’t wait to see the contributions she makes to the world. If she can bring to others even half the joy she’s brought to my life, she’ll change the course of history.