Interviewee: Brian Druker.
Brian Druker talks about sense of urgency.
Transcript:
I think one of the advantages I've had is that as a cancer doctor I can go to the clinic and see patients who right now today need something better. And by carrying that back to the lab I've always had this sense of urgency. I need to be working harder; I need to be moving things along. And nowhere was that more apparent than in the years 1996 to 1998. we had completed a fair bit of our preclinical work, our laboratory work with Gleevac, but we needed to get that drug into clinic and there are a handful of patients, CML patients that I have from those years that aren't with me any more. When I lose one I would redouble my effort to make sure that I was moving that drug into clinic because if it had a chance of saving the next person I wanted to make sure that we got it to those patients before it was too late. And I think having that sense of urgency is really what's helped me get to where I am.
Keywords:
chronic myeloid leukemia,cml patients,brian druker,gleevac,sense of urgency,cancer doctor,cancer drug,gleevec,laboratory work,leukemia,handful
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.