The Cancer Combatant

A Chinese scientist devotes his life to researching a cure for cancer By Tang Yuankai

The Cancer Combatant

A Chinese scientist devotes his life to researching a cure for cancer By Tang Yuankai

PRiZE RECiPiENT: Wang Zhenyi is a co-recipient of the Seventh annual Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research in New York, the united States

Accolades can come in many forms, but the recognition bestowed upon one Chinese scientist is truly out of this world.

Not long ago, the Minor Planet Center (MPC) based in the United States approved the designation of a minor planet—No. 43259, for those keeping count—with the name of Chinese scientist Wang Zhenyi.

Wang, born in 1924, is currently a tenured professor at the Medical School of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), hematologistacademician of Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), and a veteran expert in blood cancer.

Wang developed creative clinical treatments for leukemia, in particular the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) using all-trans retinoic acid. For this achievement, he was awarded China’s State Supreme Science and Technology Award in 2010.

Even at 88 years old, Wang is still energetic and dynamic. He adheres to the routine of going to his office in Ruijin Hospital at SJTU in Shanghai every morning to do medical research, diagnose and treat patients. Wang is so busy with his research work that he missed the award ceremony held by the Ministry of Science and Technology to receive the certificate of MPC designation in Beijing on June 4. Wang explained his absence by joking, “I don’t want to go to‘heaven’ so soon.”

Fighting cancer

Wang and other Chinese hematologists had been working on developing an effective therapy for the fatal disease for over 20 years since 1959.

The type of leukemia Wang and his team worked on is among the disease’s most serious forms. Though APL was a rare disease at the start of their research, it had a 100-percent mortality rate as there was no effective treatment at that time.

Essentially, APL is caused by pathological changes during the growth of white blood cells in the blood and marrow. White blood cells are vital for maintaining an immunologic balance in the human body. If white blood cells fail to grow normally they will destroy the body’s defense system and cause the patient to eventually die from outside infections.

Traditionally, APL was treated with chemotherapy. This therapy is a double-edged sword because it can kill both bad and good blood cells, causing further damage to the immune system.

In 1959, Wang witnessed the disastrous failure of chemotherapy. In that year, there were a total of 60 leukemia patients from around the country receiving chemotherapy treatment at the Shanghai Second Medical University hospital. In less than half a year, the patients had died from the disease and ineffective therapy. “It was a huge blow to me because I was their physician-in-charge,”Wang said.

The result aroused Wang’s suspicion against chemotherapy. He began to think about a new way to cure blood cancer.

In early 1972, Israeli scientists had proven in animal experiments that cancer cells can be reverted into healthy cells.

Based on this evidence, Wang put forward a differentiation induction theory. With medicine, he said, the cancer cells can return to normal and stop spreading throughout the body.

“Unlike a virus, cancer cells derive from normal cells,” Wang explained. “It is like a bad child in the family. Should the parents just beat it into submission or guide the right path for it? In the past, doctors used medicine to poison cancer cells but also damaged healthy cells. Differentiation induction therapy is a way to help cancer cells become healthy again,” he continued.

Finding an effective induction medicine that can distinguish cancer cells from good cells proved to be a challenge.

In 1983, Wang found some good news in a U.S. medical journal that suggested the APL cancer cells can make a reversion change toward normal white blood cells under the effect of roaccutane isotretinoin. But in China, pharmaceutical producers could only make all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA). It was highly expensive to buy the former medicine from the United States, at $2,000 per treatment—a whopping price in the 1980s. Moreover, doubts remained as to the effectiveness of the treatment.

Wang had to find another way. Since both roaccutane isotretinoin and ATRA are geometric isomers of retinoic acid, he came up with the idea of using the latter for experiments.

After numerous failures and adjustments, Wang saw the dawning light of success a year later. The team of scientists produced solid results showing that ATRA can induct the differentiation of promyelocytic cells, turning the cancer cells into good ones.

Who is Wang Zhenyi?

1924: Born in Xinghua County, Jiangsu Province

1948-1982: Served as Director of Research Center of Medicine and Pathophysiology at Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Second Medical University

1994: Selected as academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering

1996-present: Tenured professor at the Medical School of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Doctoral Supervisor and hematologist

2012: Co-recipient with Chen Zhu, the Seventh Annual Szent-Györgyi Prize in the United States

Groundbreaking cure

One day in 1985, a 5-year-old girl Yan Yijun was sent to the Children’s Hospital of Shanghai. The little girl was near death due to APL, suffering from a high fever and bleeding from her mouth and nose. Wang’s wife, Xie Jingxiong, was a hematology expert in the hospital. Xie found it difficult to cure the girl, so she consulted with her husband about the disease.

“Since there is no other way, why not try a new therapy?” Wang said to his wife. Consequently, Wang decided to make an attempt to save the girl using the newlydeveloped therapy.

After receiving ATRA for three days, the little girl was pulled back from death. Her disease stopped worsening. One week later, she opened her eyes, and after one month her condition was much improved. It was a modern medical marvel—Wang’s creative therapy had successfully cured an APL patient.

The girl has since grown up to become a healthy adult. She got married in 2011 and now serves as a researcher at an international pharmaceutical corporation.

The success of the new therapy also gave Wang a huge confidence boost. He immediately sent his students to search for APL patients at hospitals across Shanghai, requesting that these hospitals try his treatment method. In the same year, an additional 24 APL patients were effectively alleviated from the illness.

Wang’s mission from then on was to promote the new medicine. However, because of its high complexity, many pharmaceutical factories were unwilling to produce the drug. As a result, Wang founded a workshop at the medical school to manufacture medicine.

Meanwhile, foreign hematology research institutions also began to make clinical tests using Wang’s medicine. In the following two years, experts in France, Japan and the United States acknowledged the results. Judges of the Cancer Research Fund of General Motors Corp. awarded Wang the 1994 Charles F. Kettering Prize for Cancer Research, one of the top honors of its kind worldwide.

Wang has personally cured thousands of patients. About 85-90 percent of APL patients have been treated with ATRA therapy, which generates less adverse reactions, does not restrain hematopoiesis or cause hemorrhage. ATRA is also developed to be affordable medicine to cure APL cancer, which conforms to Wang’s idea of reducing the economic burden on patients as much as possible.

“The medicine is cheap because I did not apply for a patent,” Wang said. “In the 1980s, I didn’t think about intellectual property rights; I just wanted more people to be saved by it.”

“Some people may say I suffered a big loss from not patenting the medicine. But I am a doctor first—curing patients is my job.”

Despite his huge success, Wang keeps a humble attitude. “I was lucky to find an effective medicine. For the past 40 years, I have been determined to cure blood cancer. As of now, I have only found the key to just one type of cancer. There are 20 kinds of blood cancer that are still incurable,” Wang said.

Cultivating youth

In addition to medical research, Wang spends much of his time training young doctors. The current Chinese Minister of Health, Chen Zhu, is one of Wang’s former students.

In 1978, Chen, 25, a village medical care worker at that time, went to the Ruijin Hospital for study and met Wang.

“I found this young man to be very hardworking and earnest in medical practice, though he only graduated from a vocational school,” Wang said.

Chen took the graduate record examination and scored highest in the exam from a pool of 600 applicants and became Wang’s student. In that year, Wang recruited only one other student—a female named Chen Saijuan. Later the two young students were married, and both have since made achievements in curing leukemia and in terms of hematology research. Today, Chen Zhu serves as the Minister of Health, and his wife is an academician of the CAE.

Wang is an inexhaustible mentor to his students. He prepares a discussion with his students every week. At the meeting, Wang’s students and colleagues put forward newlyfounded clinical problems, which Wang takes careful note of and researches further in the following days. No matter how busy he is, he does his best to answer their questions.

“My biggest wish is to pass on my knowledge to the younger generation. It would be my great pleasure to see them go on to accomplish even more,” Wang said.

Medical Doctorate from the Medical School, Aurora University, now the Medical School of Shanghai Jiao Tong University