How discovery and determination led to a lifesaving cancer drug
\u201cTo be a scientist,\u201d notes Steve Morris, MD, \u201cyou have to take failure after failure with undying enthusiasm.\u201d Without that persistence, we might never have had the lung cancer drug Crizotinib.\n\nThe path to that drug\u2019s development spanned more than two decades, and Dr. Morris played a critical and recurring role.\n\nIn 1994, Dr. Morris and his team discovered the gene ALK and showed that it plays a critical role in some lymphomas. He went on to help show that a variety of cancer sub-types are caused by ALK abnormalities, including certain lung cancers, lymphomas, leukemias, mesotheliomas, thyroid cancers, and pediatric cancers. \n\nBut he didn\u2019t stop with discovery. He and his team also created a diagnostic test, the Vysis ALK Break Apart FISH Probe Kit, to help clinicians determine if a patient\u2019s tumors have an abnormal ALK gene.\n\nUltimately his efforts helped drug developers to come up with the lung cancer drug Xalkori (crizotinib), which was first approved by the FDA in 2011 for the treatment of ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer. The drug\u2019s use has been expanded since. Crizotinib is also being evaluated as a potential targeted drug therapy in the treatment of neuroblastoma, a type of brain cancer, and other cancers with ALK mutations or rearrangements. Up to 15% of neuroblastomas have mutations in the ALK gene.\n\nSteve Morris, MD, is the co-founder of Insight Genetics and serves as Chief Medical Officer for companies developing cancer therapies. Prior to that he was a Full Member at St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital.\n\n4:49 \u2013 On his team\u2019s \u201ctime-consuming, labor-intensive, capital-intensive\u201d discovery of the ALK gene\n\n8:48 \u2013 How ALK plays a role in cancer\n\n11:20 \u2013 The road to making ALK a druggable target\n\n16:58 \u2013 The diagnostic test he and his team developed to help clinicians determine if a patient\u2019s tumors have an abnormal ALK gene\n\n26:19 \u2013 On why he left academic medicine to pursue drug development and the creation of diagnostic tests \n\n29:32 \u2013 On the challenges of drug development, including the low success rate, the long development timeline, and the very high capital investment\n\n32:52 \u2013 On the exciting prospects of precision medicine \n\n38:39 \u2013 The role of American Cancer Society funding on his career and the discovery of ALK