The Jabberwocky in a Cancer Lab

This is going to be an unpopular point of view. From a recent article, "Time trends in cancer risk have often been summarised by the observation that mortality from cancers associated with tobacco is increasing rapidly, while mortality from all other cancers is either stable or falling slightly, this slight decline being dominated by the decrease in mortality from stomach cancer." this is of course rough but probably an adequate summary. While we know a good deal about differing cancers, our ability to engineer cell genetics, and understand in detail key cellular mechanisms of mitosis and metastasis appear from literature surveys to be very limited. If we wish to rapidly understand and defeat cancer we need to massively fund research into these fundamental matters of cell biology. It is my uneducated belief that siginficant knowledge of what amounts to molecular bioengineering will pay for itself many times over in lives saved over the long haul.

Dear Dr Gubar, Thank you for this article with colorful descriptors of a meeting between cancer patients and researchers: two groups with common goals separated by distinct language and sociology. As you so beautifully describe, these two groups rarely meet. But when they do so, deep gratitude for and understanding of each others goals, burdens and journeys quickly develops, despite the barriers of a shared language. Medical language, which I call Medicalese, is a precise shorthand method of communicating vast amounts of scientific and clinical data in as few words as possible. English is its reciprocal, heavy on emotion filtered through personal experiences. Yet, when the words eventually settle like dandelion seedlings scattered in the wind, new understanding and growth eventually develops, strengthening and inspiring commitment to each other. I am so glad that both groups could meet each other. In this frenzied world we generally do not make time for such important indulgences. As for the language of medicine, here are my thoughts (if you don't mind a link to my blogpost) https://www.curetoday.com/community/rick-boulay/2017/10/cancer-redefined And, as always, thank you for your continued commitment to the understanding of the issues of cancer survivorship.

Thanks for an informative and hopeful piece. How great that the researcher invited the group to come to the lab. As someone living with cancer it has a particularly poignant relevance to me. This is the first time I have read anything by this author. I will look for future pieces by her.

My dear professor of English: you are so enlightning in the subject of cancer… I am mazed, yet “And beware the toom toom bird” (yes something else is going to be waiting just around the corner)

This is forced, immature, and somewhat non-sensical, but still a little entertaining.

Just because the female researcher is his wife, you have to explain she "also has a Ph.D."? Don't be so hostile and patronizing.

For many years I volunteered at the Cancer Resource Center at University of California, San Francisco. One of the most hopeful and encouraging aspects of this experience for me was to meet young people who also volunteered there and were studying biology or pre-med because they had been personally touched by cancer through a loved-one's experience. They all expressed to me that they wanted to find a cure for cancer so that others wouldn't have to suffer like their parent, sibling, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or other relative did. It was wonderful to meet these young people and to know that the younger generation hasn't given up and that one day there will be a cure.

Ms. Gubar, you are a delight. Not only are your writings enlightening and entertaining ( a difficult combination ), you are a Poet. In prose. My sincere best wishes. And more, please. Soon.

Love the use of Jabberwock. Exactly what scientists & surgeons sound like.

I hope readers noticed that all the researchers did not have European sounding names. Just in case we still need some evidence of the benefits of immigrants.

What a strange strange trip it's been. Truthfully, the words I use to describe cancer are not polite or creative, and I am a long term survivor. It's for the people I have lost or are suffering now that I still wage a battle to defeat the little expletives deleted. Thank you again, Prof. Gubar.

Thanks for another excellent column Dr. Gubar. I like your idea that cancer scientists and patients (I am both) should “find occasions to chortle in beamish and frabjous talk together”. I know from my experience as a cancer patient and as a mentor to graduate students and postdocs that it can be very helpful for cancer scientists-in-training to interact with patients, and especially to learn that their research can benefit patients in the form of more effective treatments. Three years ago, one of my physicians predicted that I had just months to live, shortly before I requested treatment with a drug that targets a genetic pathway the students in my laboratory and I have studied for years - and here I am, writing this comment as something other than a “ghost writer”, so to speak. I have made a point of incorporating this story into my lectures to students. It never fails to impress them that the research they perform on the bench has very real consequences for the lives of others.

I think Lewis Carroll's wonderful language is perfect for describing all the many mysteries and horrors of cancer (I had a bone marrow transplant 22 years ago, but remember everything about it vividly).

I often find that when learning a new subject, simply letting information flow over me the first time through gives me a few foundation stones I can build upon in the future. Gradually, more and more of the information becomes part of the understandable structure.