Getting diagnosed with cancer can mean a couple of things for you: 1) you might need to start taking a lot of pills or undergo chemotherapy; and 2) you may need a therapist to help you process everything you are going through. The latter is the fact that many people are not aware of, frankly speaking. They try to deal with pain on their own, as well as the possibility of losing their confidence due to the physical changes they might experience. In truth, however, these folks should have a counselor to turn to when the situation becomes mentally unbearable.
Despite the struggles that cancer brings, we should not lose hope that there will be a drug one day that can cure more forms of the disease. After all, individuals like Clay Siegall and Mikhail Blagosklonny have made significant contributions throughout the years in the advancement of cancer research.
Get to know them below.
Clay Siegall
Dr. Clay Siegall founded Seattle Genetics in 1998 along with some colleagues in a city that serves as a frontrunner in terms of cancer researches in the United States. They have several treatments in different sampling phases, but the top drug that has passed through the third stage of clinical trials is the Adcetris, which is focused on treating lymphomas.
It is a considerable achievement for the biotechnological company, as the said medication can ideally bring forth approximately $275,000,000 of sales this 2016 from Canada and the U.S. alone. The number does not count the profits they will be getting from the rest of the world, as they have partnered with some of biggest corporations in the medical industry, like Pfizer, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, and AbbVie, among others.
Aside from Adcetris, the company is also examining the efficacy of the drugs which currently have the names SGN-CD33A and SGN-LIV1A in curing myeloid leukemia and metastatic breast cancer, respectively. In place of these economic and scientific progressions, the CEO has mentioned that they have opened a total of 100 job vacancies in the United States, and 20 in Switzerland.
Seattle Genetics has over 800 employees under its domain right now, and the workers they are looking for will be placed in the operations department rather than in the research division, in contrast to what has previously been reported. Their offices, as per Clay Siegall’s words, can accommodate more than 350 personnel, so there is a high probability that the company will hire more people in the coming years.
Mikhail Blagosklonny
As one of the most incurable and deadliest diseases that ever affected humans, cancer serves as a longstanding challenge for all the people in the medical and research fields. Thus, it is no wonder that a scientist as brilliant as Mikhail Blagosklonny joined in the wagon not too long ago and came up with theories on how to stop aging as well as cancer.
Education
The doctor and professor attended the First Pavlov State Medical University of St. Peterburg, a well-known institution in Russia with no less than 100 years of history. Mikhail Blagosklonny spent a good portion of his life in this place, for he received a Medicinae Doctor degree with a specialty in internal medicine there, and then continued to obtain a Ph.D. in cardiology and experimental medicine.
Occupation
Sometime after his graduation, in 2002, Blagosklonny uprooted himself from the Soviet and moved to the United States, particularly in New York, to become an associate profession in New York Medical College situated within the hamlet of Valhalla in the same state. His stay in this academy, however, was short-lived as Mikhail transferred to the Ordway Research Institute in Albany to take on the senior scientist post. He served this facility until 2009 before he accepted a position at the Roswell Park Research Insitute as a professor of oncology.
Research Contributions
Mikhail Blagosklonny focuses his intellect and experimental skills at present in looking for treatments for cancer and aging that can offer long-term effectivity. His main concern is to find a cure that is capable of exterminating the infected cancer cells in the human body without killing the healthier cells along the process. Also, he wishes to understand how the current anti-aging medications function to turn up with a more efficient solution to the issue of getting old.
During the researches he conducted, he was able to hypothesize that the signaling of a particular enzyme within the system with the help of rapamycin, a widely acclaimed drug for cancer, can potentially allow the users to prolong their lives and prevent aging. How this works is that the mechanistic target of rapamycin will connect to various protein chains inside the body to create two unique protein complexes. These new chains can now imitate the behavior of another kinase called threonine or serine which has the role of managing cell proliferation, growth, survival, motility, and many others.
Final Thoughts
Though there’s no telling how long we all have to wait before a cure gets created for every type of cancer out there, it is quite satisfying to know that some people like Clay Siegall and Mikhail Blagosklonny exist. They use their knowledge and power to try to make a discovery each day, hoping to help as many patients as possible. Let’s hope that these men – and all the other scientists working hard to find the best cancer treatment, that is – continue to succeed in their endeavors.