Brain Tumor, Medicine and Politics

"The gene expression analysis showed my tumor matched the profile of those in the Toronto study that responded to chemotherapy." said Bernadine Healy after her brain tumor diagnosis. Gene expression profiling was the technology which determined her brain tumor type and predicted the possible outcome of the risky chemotherapy. She completely survived the chemotherapy right before her bone marrow derived stem cells vanish as a side effect.

Gene expression analysis, DNA sequencing technologies as well as computerized (in silico) diagnostics are advancing with the speed of the light. Who knows Ed Kennedy would have been helped with the new technologies in the next decade.