Ronald A. DePinho, M.D., FCRH ’77, president of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, presented “Conquering Cancer” for the Fordham University Science Council’s fall lecture, held at The University Club in Manhattan.

Dr. DePinho, an internationally recognized researcher who spent 14 years at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School before assuming presidency of MD Anderson, said that medical advances have placed humanity at a turning point.

“This period of human history is going to go down as a major turning point for the human race,” Dr. DePinho told members of the Fordham community. “I believe that it’s going to rank up there with the discovery of fire and the advent of socialization.”

He called the cracking of the genetic code in 1953 a “seminal event” that prepared scientists today to understand life “on its most elemental level” and which had a huge impact on the successful treatment of disease.

However, there are new challenges as a result.

Thanks to improvements in vaccination, antibiotics, hygiene, and surgery, life expectancy has doubled worldwide. But a larger, older population means greater incidences of cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

By 2050, he said, we could be spending $1 trillion on Alzheimer’s disease alone.

“We have a very significant issue … the changing demographics and the impact that this is going to have on our children and their children with respect to handling the burden of age-related disease,” he said.

Nevertheless, Dr. DePinho said he is confident that there is a solution.

“It’s science. It’s to understand these diseases sufficiently so that we can prevent them from happening in the first place, detect them early, or, if they occur, definitely resolve them.

“With today’s knowledge and technology, we actually can do that.”

On Sept. 21, Dr. DePinho publicly announced that MD Anderson would be launching a $3 billion initiative to dramatically reduce cancer deaths over the next 10 years. The Moon Shots Program, as it is known, will capitalize on technological advances to accelerate the pace at which scientific discoveries are turned into clinical practices. For patients diagnosed with the leading cancers—including lung cancer, melanoma, breast and ovarian cancers, prostate cancer, and three types of leukemia—Dr. DePinho said that a cure is in sight.

At Fordham, Dr. DePinho explained some key achievements that augured well for finding a cure. He said that when the human genome was first sequenced in the 1990s, it took 12 years and cost $3.6 billion to map one genome. Today, a human genome can be sequenced in just a few hours for $300.

With the curtailed cost of sequencing and ongoing improvements in genetic engineering that can ‘silence’ gene mutations, interdisciplinary researchers have begun mapping tens of thousands of tumors, so that healthcare professionals can target treatments for specific cancers.

Dr. DePinho, who was the 1977 Fordham salutatorian, also had a message for the students.

“When history writes how we conquered the great diseases, your generation will write the final chapter,” he said.

During the course of her counseling, she came across a handful of families that had both a child and a parent being simultaneously treated for cancer. In one instance, she said, a father even postponed his own treatment regimen to allow for his son to stabilize first.

Starting in July, Barnhart will be doing her dissertation research on “Enhancing Concurrent Child and Caregiver Oncology Treatment,” thanks to $40,000, two-year grant she applied for and received from the American Cancer Society.

The grant’s goal is to look at the psychosocial impact of having a parent and child in active treatment simultaneously, on the family structures.

Barnhart noted that, at present, there is little or no research on the topic. The grant also supports her participation in professional conferences, including at the Society for Social Work and Research.

Barnhart hopes that her dissertation will eventually help inform treatment for those families facing the daunting set of circumstances.

Eventually, we will find the proper medication to cure cancer.” Most recently, Shoja has been researching the significance of planar (flat) and non-planar (twisted) flavones. His work has appeared in journals such as Zeitschrift for Kristallographie and Acta Crystallographica, international crystallography publications, with two articles scheduled to appear this spring. Flavoids are found in fruits, vegetables and other edible plants. When ingested, they work as antioxidants, anticarcinogenics and as anti-inflammatory agents. Their biological effects depend primarily on the structure and relative orientation of the different segments of the molecule.

Various flavones are commonly used to treat ulcers, dissolve blood clots and for other medical purposes. When cancer-causing molecules get into the bloodstream, the body releases enzymes that dissolve them and draw them out of the body. However, sometimes the same enzymes can cause cancer-causing hydrocarbons to interact with the body’s macromolecules, such as DNA, initiating the spread of cancer. Flavones can stop this process. Shoja uses X-ray crystallography to determine the relative flatness of the flavones.

Molecular biologists then research how the structures impact cancerous cells and other illnesses. In this case, he found that the way the crystal molecules pack together impacts the structure of the flavone. “By measuring the degree of flatness of these molecules, we can determine their potential use for cancer treatment or as inhibitors for the cell growth of different kinds of cancer,” Shoja said.