The Circuitous Route by a Group of Novices to a New FDA Approved Cancer Therapy: HOW DID WE DO THIS?

How we got there... When I first started as a cancer researcher at one of the top cancer centers in the country, I needed to find my own project knowing nothing about cancer I went to the cancer literature in search of an unsolved problem in cancer. I found one relating to radiation therapy and started to work on it. This required a new compound that had to be non-toxic to be useful. While testing the toxicity in cells a technician told me to keep the cell out of the light or the cells will die. This was a Eureka moment- has anyone tried to use this way to treat cancer in patients? The answer was no. Thus began our new treatment described in this book - Photodynamic Therapy - now an accepted way to treat certain cancers without many of the side effects of current treatment. This book describes the ups and downs of the 20 year route to FDA approval experienced by those starting with no knowledge of cancer nor how the FDA is intimately involved in the clinical aspects of a new treatment.