1 2 • GCU TODAY
A thief lives in the home of every child with cancer.
It steals play dates from the little girl too drained to go outside, favorite ice
cream from the teenager too nauseous to keep it down and carefree days
from siblings whose parents are barely surviving the cruel journey thrust
on their family. It holds hostage happiness, promotes job loss, wrecks
marriages and wipes out bank accounts.
All this, and yet the ultimate crime of cancer is even more unjust. At its
worst, cancer robs a child of nearly 70 years of life.
“I think cancer is pretty lousy no matter what age you are,” said Dr.
Robert Arceci, medical director of the Center for Cancer and Blood
Disorders at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, a beneficiary of the March 8
GCU Foundation Run to Fight Children’s Cancer. “But children’s cancer
is a horrible thing. The profound trauma and tragedy of cancer in the very
young is that it reverses the age progression. It cuts people short.”
Childhood cancer must be caught earlier, treated better and, ultimately,
eradicated, and the way to do that is to understand it. Arceci and other
prominent oncologists are working to unlock the genetic code of cancer,
using the most cutting-edge science available: molecular medicine. It
employs genetic information to determine the right treatment for the right
patient at the right time.
Under a broad umbrella of expertise and resources at PCH,
the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix and the
Translational Genomics Research Institute of Phoenix, the Ronald A.
Matricaria Institute of Molecular Medicine was formed 15 months ago.
The institute’s goal is to learn the structure and function of disease cells,
beginning with cancer, and develop more targeted, less debilitating
therapies for young patients. Early detection and cancer prevention could
eventually result, but the work is laborious and complex.
“A cell has about 25,000 genes and many more parts of the genome that
we don’t know what it does yet,” Arceci said.
The team’s first clinical
trials involve children with
acute myeloid leukemia
(AML), a fast-spreading
cancer in which bone marrow
makes a large number of
abnormal white blood cells.
Survival rates are low among
young AML patients who
haven’t responded well to
chemotherapy.
Over the next 18 months,
as many as 60 scientists in the
lab will collect and compare
samples of AML tumors to
healthy cells, and feed the
data into a new hypothesis-
generating computer module developed by the institute. The computer
will make recommendations for better drugs.
“We have to get smarter,” Arceci said. “But the fact of the matter is
that first patient you treat might respond, and you say, ‘Well, we’re pretty
smart,’ and then the next four patients won’t respond, even though they
have the same mutation.”
The institute has received grants from various organizations, including
$100,000 over four years from Children’s Cancer Network (CCN), formed
10 years ago by Steve and Patti Luttrell of Tempe to assist Arizona families
battling childhood cancer. The Luttrells’ son, Jeff, was diagnosed more than
20 years ago with leukemia and has since undergone numerous rounds of
chemotherapy and radiation and multiple surgeries. Jeff also has survived
two recurrences of a secondary cancer. Patti Luttrell is an adjunct faculty
CANCER’S
Molecular medicine could help
customize treatment for children
B Y J A N I E M A G R U D E R
Dr. Robert Arceci: “For every 100
children, one to three will die just from
our treatment.”
photo courtesy of
phoenix children
’
s hospital
