On the passing of Christopher Reeve
Twenty-five years or so ago, a cancer research lab was established in Dayton, Ohio, and I was the first reporter in town to interview its founding researcher, Dr. Martin Murphy, who had just moved there from New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital. After the lab was up and running, I came back to do a magazine feature. I spent a whole week there, watching the researchers at work, scribbling and scribbling into my notebook as they patiently explained what they were doing and why, making mental notes as they pointed out what I shouldn't touch, and why. Dr. Murphy was the most patient of them all, explaining not only what was happening there but what else he hoped to accomplish. One step in the battle against cancer, he told me, was to establish a medical journal for researchers like himself so that they could compare notes and learn faster. The first issue was about to come out. The journal's name: Stem Cells. It's still being published today, as is its sister publication, The Oncologist. That was the first I ever heard of stem cells. Dr. Murphy happened to be a Catholic, which was then and is now considered a pro-life religion, but he had no qualms about stem-cell research. He believed in it so much he was establishing its professional journal. But that was a long time ago, when the right wasn't nearly so radical.
These days, they don't do stem-cell research at that lab anymore, or any research. Now, it's the Cancer Prevention Institute.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @4:52 PM
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11.10.04  |
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