TOLEDO, Ohio — It’s the belief of Toledo’s own Danny Thomas that research would lead to the cure for all types of pediatric cancer.
Today, that dream is one big step closer to a reality thanks to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Towering over the campus is a new beacon of hope: a research tower that may soon hold new cures to cancer.
Dr. Jason Dapper, a senior scientist in the Department of Neurobiology at St. Jude, would know. He works each day studying new cures, but he also knows how it all began.
“I know Danny Thomas was very integrated in saying we need to have the scientists and researchers working with the clinicians because we don’t want them on their own separate schedules, their own islands not knowing what either is doing," Dapper said.
To this day, that is exactly what happens on the sprawling campus of St. Jude. It's a collaborative effort by research scientists, clinicians, doctors and nurses.
Modern pediatric medicine is leading the charge to defeat childhood cancer in the very lab where Dapper works. The science is very technical, but Dapper broke it down.
“We work on a lot of drug discovery in our lab and we use models to mimic the cancers that patients have and then find new drugs that we can test on those to see how they work," he said.
From there, research conducted in the lab can make it directly to the doctors at the bedside of patients at St. Jude. New clinical trials, medicines and treatment protocols are designed and implemented right on the campus of St. Jude.
All the research is openly shared with others across the world, too, making the difference in the global fights against cancer.
“When we do our research, especially our big collaborative projects, we do make our resources freely available for any other labs that want to be able to research them," Dapper said. "We have a list of a database of all the cancers we have and all the next-generation sequencing we have done on them and make that freely available."
The future, and hope for cures to all cancer, wouldn’t be possible without Toledo’s Danny Thomas. It was his bold vision which opened the door to St. Jude over 60 years ago.
“I would say thank you for having this vision and this dream of putting together this hospital in which we could do research and treat patients with cancer, because not only has it progressed science in general, but think of the hundreds and thousands of patients that have come through here and been treated that might not have had an option," Dapper said of Thomas' work.
Today, the brand new Inspiration4 Advanced Research Center towers over the campus of St. Jude, leading the way with research around the clock day and night. It’s the race to find a cure through modern medicine. The task is not complete until cancer is cured for good.
Dapper also discussed St. Jude's success over the years.
“I know when St. Jude started, the overall cancer survival rate in children was 20%," he said. "Well, with St. Jude's leading research and treatment, that rate has been lifted up to 80%. In fact, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, which is a certain type of blood cancer, has gone from 4% survival to 94% survival due in large part to the work St. Jude has done on Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia."
The research, all openly shared, is possible because of your generosity and support of programs like the Toledo St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway.