What is in the bio-science pipeline is amazing to say the least.

For decades, I’ve wondered why we spend so much of our resources on killing people instead of curing people. Just imagine the trillions of dollars wasted on warfare, when all the while, we could have been finding a cure for cancer, and the other cancer known as hate.

For decades, I’ve wondered why we spend so much of our resources on killing people instead of curing people.

The idea is to reduce the number of people on the planet. Some folks believe that there are too many of us.

How about a nod to our own Dr. Brian Druker of OHSU who used a similar strategy with his drug Gleevec? When I asked him how long it would be until other designer approaches would be unleashed on specific cancers, I believe he mentioned ten years and this was around that long ago.

However, he didn't talk about this approach of customizing live cells that go on reproducing while they attack the cancer...that part is gorgeous. What he developed was a designer drug that just went into the bad cells and switched them off. It was so clever and so much less invasive than attacking with radiation or chemo.

This new approach is even more slick. And the part where some hang around just in case the cancer comes back, is also spectacular.

But Druker's breakthrough was good enough to be the lead story on at least one of the national nightly news shows. And he certainly looked proud surrounded by patients who were saying their last goodbyes to their families before he gave them the Gleevec and turned the tide of battle. Just like in this article, he refused to say they were cured - but they were alive and well and no trace of the bad cells could be found in their bodies. The problem was - as I recall - that the Gleevec only worked on a specific type of leukemia or cancer that not many people have, but it was a big step in customizing the attacking agent to kill only the bad cells.

You can see by the amount of cells that were killed off in this latest breakthrough - 2 pounds worth in one patient - that you can't afford to lose any healthy tissue with numbers like that.

One other thing: When my column about Dr. Druker came out in the Trib, he actually took the time to write me a thank-you letter that I still have. A class act. We called the column, "Hero Time at OHSU".