The structure which is ICORG
has so far helped 2600 Irish patients get access to some of the
latest cancer drugs. It is currently 80% funded from charitable
and grant sources. Your donation or support could make a real
difference to help us expand the opportunity of research to more
Irish patients.
Friends of ICORG's
The following people or organisations have made vital financial
or service contributions to ICORG over the last four years;
their efforts have ensured ICORG's continued existence.
- Cecil Riddel and the Bunclody ICORG fundraisers
- Tony Fagan
- Allianz
- Michael O'Leary Memorial Fund
- Combined Media Company
Research
Cures Cancer - Research Needs Money
An example of how research has made the difference
in recent times- curing childhood leukaemia
Curing Childhood Leukemia
Cancer is an insidious disease. The culprit is not a foreign
invader, but the altered descendants of our own cells, which
reproduce uncontrollably. In this civil war, it is hard to
distinguish friend from foe, to target the cancer cells without
killing the healthy cells.
Most of our current cancer therapies,
including the cure for childhood leukemia described here, are
based on the fact that cancer cells reproduce without some
of the safeguards present in normal cells. If we can interfere
with cell reproduction, the cancer cells will be hit disproportionately
hard and often will not recover.
The scientists and physicians
who devised the cure for childhood
leukaemia pioneered a rational
approach to destroying cancer cells, using knowledge about the
cell built up from a series of basic research discoveries earlier
in this century. The scientists' approach was to take a chemical
that they knew was essential for cell reproduction--a building
block for making DNA --and modify it so that it jammed the cell's
works when the cell mistook it for the usual chemical. Such deliberately
defective materials are called antimetabolites. Many of them
are now used as drugs to treat not only cancer, but also gout,
bacterial infections, viral infections, and many other illnesses.
The fight against cancer has been more of
a war of attrition than a series of spectacular, instantaneous
victories, and the research into childhood leukaemia over the last
40 years is no exception. But most of the children who are victims
of this disease can now be cured, and the drugs that made
this possible are the antimetabolite drugs. The logic behind those
drugs came from a wide array of research that defined the chemical
workings of the cell--research done by scientists who could not
know that their findings would eventually save the lives of up
to thirty thousand children each year in the U.S. alone.
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