Great Experiments: The First Chemotherapy

The First Chemotherapy

Aminopterin Attempting to Slay Cancer

In a centuries-old battle against a relentless enemy, cancer biologists have had no choice but to plunge-in head first, using whatever weaponry was in arm’s reach as they fell. Only the most gruesome of treatments worked: mutilating surgeries, radiation bombardment, and mustard gas (a literal weapon), among others. Researchers yearned for a cancer-killing drug, a “cure.” By the 1940s they had grown despondent, hopeless that a cure could be found. Then in the winter of 1947, Sidney Farber (a laboratory pathologist, desperate to leave his microscope and treat patients) took the first successful step in that direction. He performed an impromptu clinical trial of Aminopterin (a then newly-synthesized folate antagonist) with a two-year old boy 'on the verge of death.' The offender: lymphoid leukemia. The young boy’s subsequent remission was momentous and ignited the field of chemotherapy and hope for a cure.

Farber et al. 1948. NEJM 238:23.

Looking for more?

1. You may find a nice history of cancer chemotherapy here.

2. Interested in reading further? I am presently in the throngs of The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. This NY Times article describes it nicely.

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FOR COURSE PARTICIPANTS:

Our goal: to learn about important, beautifully designed experiments from across the biological and biomedical sciences.

In the course, you'll gain experience in reading classic papers and explaining key experiments from your own fields of interest to colleagues in other fields.

Students propose papers to discuss in the form of short written posts on this site. Papers to discuss are selected by class vote each week.

This course should strengthen your communication skills and your understanding of diverse fields of biology–and importantly, it should inspire creative thinking about your own research.

Writing your posts

Each person should contribute at least 4 posts about their favorite experiments by 1 month before the end of the semester (by the end of October). Please propose your own schedule for 4 posts in an email to Bob.

Please post about experiments that you consider to be (1) fundamental to an area of science and (2) beautifully designed. Experiments that changed or founded a field and also made you hit your head and say, "damn, why didn't I think of that?!" are great choices.

Posts should be 150 words or fewer, plus a picture or movie with an appropriate image credit included. Please do not exceed 150 words. This is an exercise in clear, concise writing.

Your post should be written for an intelligent audience who understands biology but knows little to nothing about the field you're writing about. Avoid confusing jargon. Informal wording is fine. Your post's title should capture what's interesting and fundamental about the work, for example the central question addressed by the work.

Please provide a link to the one paper you chose, bullet-pointed so that there's no confusion about which one this is. If you like, below the one bullet-pointed link you can also provide a link to a companion paper or two that can help put the main paper into context.

It's considered very bad form to cut and paste text from programs like Microsoft Word for your post, because hidden formatting comes along and can cause headaches. It makes me sad. A tip: copying your text from Word into a Google search bar, and then copying that text from the search bar, eliminates the formatting.

You can modify your posts at any time. It's okay to rewrite your dusty old posts to try to re-invigorate interest.

Voting

Voting will take place each Friday until 5pm on a poll that will be sent to you. Each poll will generally include all posts that are up by that Friday at 8am.

Please vote every week. Please don't vote for your own selections. The voting will decide which paper we'll read for the following week's meeting. Posts that are getting few or no votes will be removed periodically.

Meetings

We'll meet each Thursday at 12:30pm in GSB3101. Each week, we'll discuss the winning paper. The person who chose it will present it along with anything else that seems relevant, with everyone's help, tolerating constant interruptions for some interesting discussion.

An important part of the course: Everyone else should plan to present one other thing briefly and informally to everyone–a related paper, some historical background, or anything at all you chose to explore because you found it interesting and relevant. Come prepared to answer questions, since we're all curious.

If you don't have time to do the readings one week, please skip the meeting that week. This way, everyone who comes will be full participants. No one will be badgered for missing just 1 or 2 meetings, I swear.

-Bob Goldstein