Today, as part of my

Today, as part of my official Ides of March birthday celebration plan, I rewarded myself for making it through 26 years of toil and hardhip by really pampering myself. I went to class. One of the best birthday presents I can give myself right now is to not fall behind (seeing as I have my second "Blood" exam coming up on Friday).

As a reward for this good behavior, the birthday gods bestowed upon me the opportunity to be lectured by one of the great minds of modern science, Dr. Brian Druker, inventor of Gleevec. Though this drug sounds like the inspiration for the Kids in the Hall movie "Brain Candy," in reality Gleevec made headlines a couple years ago when it proved to be a near miracle drug in the treatment for chronic myelogenous leukemia. It kind of put OHSU on the map in a lot of ways, and forced all of its med students to learn A LOT about these specific cell receptors called receptor tyrosine kinases, which are mutated in CML.

Dr. Druker's lecture was great, not because he's a famous and very wealthy guy (and hence the idol of future hematologists everywhere), but because he used a variety of movie clips to introduce some points about CML and Gleevec (whose real name is Imatinib). He started out his lecture by showing the entire intro to the movie Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks. Lesson#1: CML is caused by a mutation that is known as the "Philadelphia chromosome." This happens when chromosome 9 and chromosome 22 are sitting next together, and they swap parts of their chromosomes. This weird move, called a translocation, puts 2 genes right next to eachother that shouldn't be anywhere near eachother. When transcribed, they form a mutant fusion protein that causes the cell to keep dividing repeatedly, leading to the leukemia.

The next movie was another Tom Hanks gem, Apollo 13. He showed the take off scene, saying "Apollo 13 blasts off to disaster." Lesson #2: CML, if not treated, can progress to a what's called a blast crisis, where immature cells or "blasts" basically take over your body and kill you. Its a very bad scene - almost completely untreatable, and virtually totally avoidable with Gleevec. I actually think I can remember that (thanks Tom Hanks!)

He used the last clip to end his lecture. That famous scene from Rocky (shot entirely in Philadelphia, of course), where he jogs around to that awesome theme music and shadow boxes on the steps of the capital and raises his hands in victory. Lesson 3#: Either patients who would have died now have a new lease on life! Or, you should go into pharmaceuticals because this drug costs $25,000 a year and you could be rich! Or See, hematology is truly inspirational! I had a hard time figuring out that last message. But it was a good lecture, one worthy to be scheduled for March 15th.
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