RadioActive Producer Antonia Dorn (left) hugs her best friend Maga Barzallo-Sockemtickem (right) at the 2012 Fall Listening Party at the South Park Community Center
Leukemia is said to be the most common form of cancer found in children. Now Seattle Children’s Hospital says it is ready to try a brand new method of treatment. Leukemia is usually treated with a bone marrow transplant, but researchers say that there might be a better way to fight off the disease.
Ross Reynolds talks with Dr. Rebecca Gardner, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital about the latest in leukemia treatments.
Mother and son in the children's ward at Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala.
Credit Joanne Silberner
Many parents can’t bring their children in for repeated chemotherapy treatments – they may live 10 or 12 hours away by bus. The average one-year survival rate is 10 percent.
Credit Joanne Silberner
The Uganda Cancer Institute doesn’t have high-tech equipment like MRI machines or gamma knives, but intravenous chemotherapy is possible – and in many cases, curative.
Credit Joanne Silberner
This child has Burkitt's lymphoma, a cancer that is common in Uganda. The cancer makes the jaws and bellies swell grotesquely.
Credit Joanne Silberner
The cancer institute is the only medical facility in Uganda dedicated to treating cancer patients. More than 20,000 patients a year are seen here.
Forty-two-year-old Corey Casper is tall, thin, and a bit hollow-eyed from all his responsibilities. He’s a cancer doctor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He performs research and trains young doctors in Seattle and Uganda. And in his own quiet way, he wants to make a difference in the world.
A parasite worms its way into a host, hijacks its nervous system and begins to control their behavior. Sounds like T.V. or the movies, but scientists have long known that parasites can take over and manipulate invertebrate and some vertebrate hosts. We talk with Dr. Shelley Adamo of Dalhousie University about how parasites may be turning hosts into zombies.