飯塚病院つながりで白井敬祐先生（サウスカロライナ医科大学血液腫瘍内科）に教えてもらった、Dr. Brian Drukerというグリベック（慢性骨髄性白血病の薬）を発見した人の、医科大学卒業式での卒業生向けのスピーチです。元気が出ます。長くて済みませんが。
讃井將満
Dr. Brian Druker's OHSU commencement speech
Posted by The Oregonian June 07, 2007 16:01PM
Targeting Hope When Nobody Believes in You
OHSU Commencement 2007
Brian J. Druker, MD
JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research
Director of the OHSU Cancer Institute Leukemia Center
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Elected to Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
Dr. Brian Druker: You don't have a future. You're not going to succeed.
I hope you never pursue a career in science.
Those are just a few of the words of encouragement I've heard in my career.
At the time, the words stung. They caused me to doubt myself, but they
were not fatal. And strangely, I now look on them as gifts. They
helped shape who I am today. Those low expectations made me more
determined. Now, I'm not going to thank those people who dismissed me
and I'm certainly not going to dedicate this speech to them. But they
helped me define my goals and who I am.
This is an exciting time for you. You have persevered and made it to
graduation. You have made your teachers and families proud. But along
the way, someone will doubt you. Maybe they already have. What matters
is that you listen to your inner voice that tells you anything is
possible.
Fifteen years ago I was a young scientist at a critical juncture in my
career looking for my first faculty appointment. At the time, I was at
Harvard's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where I had completed my
training in Oncology and had spent seven years working in the lab
developing my skills as a scientist. I had shown some promise by
developing one of the most widely used tools to study the regulation
of cell growth. I was making significant strides in leukemia research
and had published numerous papers, mostly as a collaborator. I was
feeling pretty good about my work. So I met with the man running
Dana-Farber to ask for some lab space and a promotion. He sat behind
his desk, thumbing through my papers. He told me I didn't have enough
independently- authored papers and that I didn't have a future at
Dana-Farber. But I had a back up. I had been negotiating with the
Chief of Medicine across the street at Beth Israel Hospital. When I
went back to close the deal, I was told the job had been given to
someone else with more promise.
I was devastated. Two of the most prominent leaders in the medical
field had told me I was not worth the investment. But as I look back,
this was a turning point. It was like someone knocked me in the head.
I had gone into cancer research to find a better way to treat cancer.
I was tired of giving chemotherapy and often making my patients sicker
rather than better. And I had promised my patients I would go into the
lab until I found a better way to treat cancer. Had I stayed at
Dana-Farber, I would have had a cushy job at a prestigious
institution. I would have played it safe.
But these events awakened and invigorated my desire to make a
difference. It was an opportune time. I believed targeted therapies
were the future. We were discovering what drives the growth of cancer
cells. I believed as we gathered more information about our cells and
how they malfunctioned we could develop drugs that act as cruise
missiles, destroying the cancer but leaving healthily cells alone.
Those setbacks gave me focus. I just needed lab space and a fresh
start. I accepted a job at OHSU and moved to Oregon. I had one goal. I
wanted to find a drug that worked in my disease models and get that
drug into the clinic for my patients. I was fortunate to find a boss
like Grover Bagby. He said recently, "Sometimes the best thing you can
do for a researcher is to give them an opportunity and leave them
alone." And he did just that for me.
Within six weeks of arriving in Oregon I started working with
compounds, one of which killed leukemia cells without harming normal
cells. I had exactly what I had been looking for. This compound would
later become the drug Gleevec. It's now considered a revolutionary
cancer treatment but at the time the drug company didn't think it was
worth the investment. They thought the drug wouldn't work, would be
too toxic, and would never make enough money to warrant the investment
in its development. Nor were they willing to take a chance on an
unheard of investigator from Oregon. It was a five-year crusade to get
this drug to patients.
And though I had felt abandoned by some people I once respected, there
was one group of people who never doubted me; my patients.
I'm always amazed at how patients believe in you, even when you're
just starting out. Even when you're just out of medical school,
pretending to be a doctor, but deep inside you don't feel like one.
Bud Romine was one of those patients who believed in me. Bud was a
newly retired railroad engineer. Four years earlier he had been
diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, or CML, the disease I was
working on. He was 65 and had few options. He had tried interferon,
but it didn't work and left him with little energy. He was too old for
a transplant. His wife of 42 years, Yvonne, a retired bank clerk, kept
a meticulous folder filled with charts of his blood counts. The lines
fluctuated dramatically from 15,000 to 150,000. She drew another line
at 10,000 for the top of the normal range, something Bud hadn't seen
in over three years. But for Bud the numbers didn't mean much. He only
knew that he didn't have any energy to play golf and he often felt too
weak to get out of bed.
Bud read the story in the newspaper about our laboratory studies. He
contacted me immediately and put his life in my hands. The average
life expectancy for a CML patient was five years and Bud's time was
running out. But Bud put his faith in me and trusted that I would be
able to help him.
That faith bolsters you. It emboldened me to take on the biggest drug
company in the world and get this drug to them.
We had tested the drug in the lab and were pretty sure it was safe.
But until you give it to patients, you don't really know. Bud was
incredibly courageous. He stepped forward and wanted to be the first
patient to be given the drug. Within three weeks on Gleevec, his
counts returned to normal. But again the numbers didn't give the real
picture. For Bud, it meant he could play golf and spend his winters in
California.
Now, nine years later, this previously fatal leukemia has a 95%
five-year survival.
Let me put five years in a different perspective.
LaDonna, a retired dietician from SW Washington, came to my clinic
seven years ago. She could barely walk because her spleen, normally
the size of a fist, had swelled to the size of a football. Her spleen
compressed her stomach so that she couldn't hold down any food. She
was losing 2 to 3 pounds a day. She had only weeks left when she came
to see me. LaDonna had bought a burial plot and picked out the music
for her funeral. Within a week on Gleevec, she was able to walk again.
Her spleen shrunk and after a month her blood counts had returned to
normal.
I have a picture of LaDonna from five years ago where she is playing
with her grandchildren, age 16, 13 and a three year old she wasn't
supposed to meet, named Will, because he was her will to live. She
recently gave me a new picture. It was from her eldest grandchild's
wedding, now 21. Her 13 year old is now 18 and has graduated from high
school and her 3 year old is now 8 and just completed 3rd grade.
I owe the greatest debt to my patients who have put their faith in me
as we have gone on this journey to find better cancer treatments. I
have learned the importance of listening to your patients. Some of
best lessons come from them. And perhaps the greatest lesson they have
taught me is this; the greatest gift in life is hope.
We are at an important juncture in medicine. We are so close to
eradicating many fatal diseases, such as cancer, or at least turning
them into manageable, chronic conditions. I have stood on the
shoulders of researchers who laid out the path for me. Some of you
will continue that work. Some of you will help us reach the goal of
curing cancer or other diseases. But all of you will bring hope to
your patients through the work you do.
I want to leave you with one last parting gift.
You will never succeed.
I can't wait to see how you prove me wrong.
讃井將満
Dr. Brian Druker's OHSU commencement speech
Posted by The Oregonian June 07, 2007 16:01PM
Targeting Hope When Nobody Believes in You
OHSU Commencement 2007
Brian J. Druker, MD
JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research
Director of the OHSU Cancer Institute Leukemia Center
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Elected to Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
Dr. Brian Druker: You don't have a future. You're not going to succeed.
I hope you never pursue a career in science.
Those are just a few of the words of encouragement I've heard in my career.
At the time, the words stung. They caused me to doubt myself, but they
were not fatal. And strangely, I now look on them as gifts. They
helped shape who I am today. Those low expectations made me more
determined. Now, I'm not going to thank those people who dismissed me
and I'm certainly not going to dedicate this speech to them. But they
helped me define my goals and who I am.
This is an exciting time for you. You have persevered and made it to
graduation. You have made your teachers and families proud. But along
the way, someone will doubt you. Maybe they already have. What matters
is that you listen to your inner voice that tells you anything is
possible.
Fifteen years ago I was a young scientist at a critical juncture in my
career looking for my first faculty appointment. At the time, I was at
Harvard's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where I had completed my
training in Oncology and had spent seven years working in the lab
developing my skills as a scientist. I had shown some promise by
developing one of the most widely used tools to study the regulation
of cell growth. I was making significant strides in leukemia research
and had published numerous papers, mostly as a collaborator. I was
feeling pretty good about my work. So I met with the man running
Dana-Farber to ask for some lab space and a promotion. He sat behind
his desk, thumbing through my papers. He told me I didn't have enough
independently- authored papers and that I didn't have a future at
Dana-Farber. But I had a back up. I had been negotiating with the
Chief of Medicine across the street at Beth Israel Hospital. When I
went back to close the deal, I was told the job had been given to
someone else with more promise.
I was devastated. Two of the most prominent leaders in the medical
field had told me I was not worth the investment. But as I look back,
this was a turning point. It was like someone knocked me in the head.
I had gone into cancer research to find a better way to treat cancer.
I was tired of giving chemotherapy and often making my patients sicker
rather than better. And I had promised my patients I would go into the
lab until I found a better way to treat cancer. Had I stayed at
Dana-Farber, I would have had a cushy job at a prestigious
institution. I would have played it safe.
But these events awakened and invigorated my desire to make a
difference. It was an opportune time. I believed targeted therapies
were the future. We were discovering what drives the growth of cancer
cells. I believed as we gathered more information about our cells and
how they malfunctioned we could develop drugs that act as cruise
missiles, destroying the cancer but leaving healthily cells alone.
Those setbacks gave me focus. I just needed lab space and a fresh
start. I accepted a job at OHSU and moved to Oregon. I had one goal. I
wanted to find a drug that worked in my disease models and get that
drug into the clinic for my patients. I was fortunate to find a boss
like Grover Bagby. He said recently, "Sometimes the best thing you can
do for a researcher is to give them an opportunity and leave them
alone." And he did just that for me.
Within six weeks of arriving in Oregon I started working with
compounds, one of which killed leukemia cells without harming normal
cells. I had exactly what I had been looking for. This compound would
later become the drug Gleevec. It's now considered a revolutionary
cancer treatment but at the time the drug company didn't think it was
worth the investment. They thought the drug wouldn't work, would be
too toxic, and would never make enough money to warrant the investment
in its development. Nor were they willing to take a chance on an
unheard of investigator from Oregon. It was a five-year crusade to get
this drug to patients.
And though I had felt abandoned by some people I once respected, there
was one group of people who never doubted me; my patients.
I'm always amazed at how patients believe in you, even when you're
just starting out. Even when you're just out of medical school,
pretending to be a doctor, but deep inside you don't feel like one.
Bud Romine was one of those patients who believed in me. Bud was a
newly retired railroad engineer. Four years earlier he had been
diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, or CML, the disease I was
working on. He was 65 and had few options. He had tried interferon,
but it didn't work and left him with little energy. He was too old for
a transplant. His wife of 42 years, Yvonne, a retired bank clerk, kept
a meticulous folder filled with charts of his blood counts. The lines
fluctuated dramatically from 15,000 to 150,000. She drew another line
at 10,000 for the top of the normal range, something Bud hadn't seen
in over three years. But for Bud the numbers didn't mean much. He only
knew that he didn't have any energy to play golf and he often felt too
weak to get out of bed.
Bud read the story in the newspaper about our laboratory studies. He
contacted me immediately and put his life in my hands. The average
life expectancy for a CML patient was five years and Bud's time was
running out. But Bud put his faith in me and trusted that I would be
able to help him.
That faith bolsters you. It emboldened me to take on the biggest drug
company in the world and get this drug to them.
We had tested the drug in the lab and were pretty sure it was safe.
But until you give it to patients, you don't really know. Bud was
incredibly courageous. He stepped forward and wanted to be the first
patient to be given the drug. Within three weeks on Gleevec, his
counts returned to normal. But again the numbers didn't give the real
picture. For Bud, it meant he could play golf and spend his winters in
California.
Now, nine years later, this previously fatal leukemia has a 95%
five-year survival.
Let me put five years in a different perspective.
LaDonna, a retired dietician from SW Washington, came to my clinic
seven years ago. She could barely walk because her spleen, normally
the size of a fist, had swelled to the size of a football. Her spleen
compressed her stomach so that she couldn't hold down any food. She
was losing 2 to 3 pounds a day. She had only weeks left when she came
to see me. LaDonna had bought a burial plot and picked out the music
for her funeral. Within a week on Gleevec, she was able to walk again.
Her spleen shrunk and after a month her blood counts had returned to
normal.
I have a picture of LaDonna from five years ago where she is playing
with her grandchildren, age 16, 13 and a three year old she wasn't
supposed to meet, named Will, because he was her will to live. She
recently gave me a new picture. It was from her eldest grandchild's
wedding, now 21. Her 13 year old is now 18 and has graduated from high
school and her 3 year old is now 8 and just completed 3rd grade.
I owe the greatest debt to my patients who have put their faith in me
as we have gone on this journey to find better cancer treatments. I
have learned the importance of listening to your patients. Some of
best lessons come from them. And perhaps the greatest lesson they have
taught me is this; the greatest gift in life is hope.
We are at an important juncture in medicine. We are so close to
eradicating many fatal diseases, such as cancer, or at least turning
them into manageable, chronic conditions. I have stood on the
shoulders of researchers who laid out the path for me. Some of you
will continue that work. Some of you will help us reach the goal of
curing cancer or other diseases. But all of you will bring hope to
your patients through the work you do.
I want to leave you with one last parting gift.
You will never succeed.
I can't wait to see how you prove me wrong.