Interviewee: Brian Druker.
Brian Druker talks about the drug he developed as a turning point in the war on cancer.
(DNAi Location: Applications > Genes and medicine > Drug design > Brian Druker > Before and after Gleevec™)
Transcript:
One of my very favorite articles was written by The Chicago Tribune and the opening quote was, "In the war on cancer there will be before Gleevec™ and after Gleevec™." And although it may be a bit presumptuous, I certainly hope that that's the way Gleevec™ is remembered. Because my own view is that if you can do it with chronic myeloid leukemia, meaning if you can understand what drives the growth of cancer, target that with a specific treatment that's effective and non-toxic, you can do that with every single cancer. And what's unique about chronic myeloid leukemia is not the cancer, but our understanding of it. We understand what drives the growth and we can treat it early in the course of the disease.
Professor Charles Sawyer explains that CML stands for chronic myeloid leukemia, which is a blood cancer and it is different from many cancers because it starts very slowly and patients when they're first diagnosed don't have many symptoms.