Another Maltese to be proud of
Dr Johann de Bono, who was born and brought up in Malta, has joined the exalted realm of those rare individuals who have made a fundamental contribution to improving the human condition. He has led a research team that has discovered a new drug which fights the deadliest forms of prostate cancer, a major killer of men. The drug puts the disease into remission, allowing those affected to carry on with their lives.
Do we realise how important this is? I think not. The news has received more coverage in the international press than it has down home.
I hope that at the very least Dr De Bono is decorated by the president on Republic Day. It would be hard to find a more worthy recipient.
Read this article from The Guardian:
Health: Drug trial hope for men with prostate cancer
– Research at early stage but doctors say treatment may be major advance
By Sarah Boseley, health editor/The Guardian, 22 July 2008
A new drug to fight the deadliest forms of prostate cancer could put thousands of men into remission, allowing them to work and travel as before and potentially save lives, the head of a worldwide clinical trial has announced.
Dr Johann de Bono, lead researcher of trials that began at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, said the treatment is “spectacularly active … we believe we have made a major step forward in treating patients who have failed all other treatments”.
Trials of the drug, abiraterone, are still at an early stage and no patient has taken it for longer than two and a half years. However, results have been very promising and there is hope it may be widely available within three years.
Some of those involved have been able to come off the morphine they had been taking for pain relief. Scans showed that tumours considered untreatable had shrunk – including those that had spread to bone and other tissues.
Men with advanced prostate cancer, which kills 12,000 in the UK every year, are not expected to live more than 12 to 18 months after chemotherapy.
“We have patients still in the trial who started in December 2005 and are still doing well two and a half years later. This is very unusual,” said De Bono. “Within three months I have had men stop their morphine and say I’m going to see my daughter living in Australia.”
No firm conclusions can yet be drawn on whether the drug will significantly increase the lifespan of those with advanced prostate cancer – nobody has yet taken it for long enough.
And although the side-effects so far seem to be mild – the most common being weight gain and fatigue – larger trials are necessary in case a small minority of patients suffer something more severe.
So far 250 men have been treated with the drug worldwide and a global trial of 1,200 is under way which researchers hope will be followed by rapid licensing. They hope to see it the drug available by 2011.
Prostate cancer attracts far less research funding than breast cancer, said De Bono, who played a part in discovering the drug at the Institute of Cancer Research, which is the academic arm of the Royal Marsden.
Abiraterone is now being developed by a US company called Cougar Biotechnology, which is funding the trials.
Independent experts cautioned that the full risks and benefits of the drug will only be known after more years of bigger trials. But John Neate, chief executive of the Prostate Cancer Charity said it was “an exciting development, which has been eagerly anticipated. Early trial results of abiraterone potentially represent the first significant advance in drug treatment of prostate cancer for some time.”
Professor Malcolm Mason, Cancer Research UK’s prostate cancer expert, said although the early results were extremely exciting “there’s a lot more work needed to establish what abiraterone’s place will be in treating men with prostate cancer.”
The excitement stems from the paucity of drugs to treat men who have the aggressive form of the cancer. Some prostate cancers hardly progress and men are advised to watch and wait rather than undergo surgery and chemotherapy which can leave them impotent and incontinent.
It has long been known that prostate cancer is fuelled by testosterone. The Institute of Cancer Research scientists found that drugs to suppress the hormone have limited efficacy because tumours produce their own. The new drug switches off this production and appears to work in around 80% of patients. De Bono thinks the drug might work in breast cancers too.
He complained at a briefing yesterday that the drug regulatory system is too slow – requiring data on the numbers of deaths prevented by cancer drugs. He is hoping to establish a new measure – of the drop in the number of cancer cells in the blood which could mean faster registration.
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Yes I totally agree with you. In fact, I couldn’t but add him to Wikipedia under Important Maltese People, or something of the sort.
I heard it on the BBC world service too.
Very well done Doc
I know Johann because we were in the same class together. I also know his father, incidentally also Mario Debono, a pharmacst who used to run a pharmacy in Birzebbugia. Pharmaceuticals are my profession, and this drug is possibly one of the most important discovery made in years. Prostae cancer is a very serious disease and this drug seems to work where all else fails, and where surgery has not had the desired results. This is a breakthrough of truly gigantic proportions and yes, Dr Debono should be up there with the great Maltese Debonos, like Andrea Debono, an explorer who found the source of the Nile ( and, smugly, my exalted ancestor!), Edward Debono, who needs no introduction, and Professor PP Debono, a surgeon who was a pioneer in innovative surgery. So Hail, Johann…..well done!!!!
Don’t worry, you can rest assured that such people will never make it to the Republic Day ceremony! What about Michael Mifsud, Michael Bartolo and many other in the sports sector in which we are very limited but nontheless such athletes make the grade not oly locally but on an international scale?!?!!?!
My best friend Gert Attard (Gerhardt) is also on his team at the royal marsden hospital and this year he was chosen by the US Foundation for Prostate Cancer (the largest in the field) for an award of $250,000 (the first time it has been awarded outside the US) for the researcher who has contributed most to the field of prostate cancer – he is only 32 years old and just like his boss Dr Debono has a brilliant career ahead – well done
How about starting by giving a decent pay to those doctors already working in Malta, perhaps also attracting maltese specialists and researchers back to Malta, most doctors would welcome a decent monthly pay package more than these abstract awards.
He’s just doing his job. There are other Maltese all over the world, doing equally worthy stuff, and doing it well. But they’re unlucky enough to be doing things which your average reader is not familiar with. And so they get no coverage.
Let me give you another handle to see how important this is. I quote Jow Jones news wires:
QUOTE
Shares in UK life sciences firm BTG PLC rose Tuesday amid widespread publicity for experimental prostate cancer drug abiraterone, a BTG product licensed to Cougar Biotechnology of US and hailed as a major advance in treating the disease by british researchers.
The results were described by chairty Cancer research UK’s cancer expert professor Malcolm Mason as “extremely exciting” although he said larger trials were needed.
Shares in BTG rose 7% whereas they gained 47% in the last 12 months.
BTG licensed abiterone form the Institute of Cancer Research many years ago and subsequently it to licensed it to Los Angeles basec Cougar Biotechnology. Since then Cougar paid for the institute two and a half years trials has pushed the drug through development and began a pivotal III trial in April in more than 1000 patients.
Analaysts estimate that if successful sales of abirterone could reach between $500 million and $1 billion a year.
UNQUOTE
If it becomes such price moving news than it must be big.
Well done Dr Debono. I heard that Dr Debono proceeded to the UK to read medicine at the tender age of 17 in 1984.
1984 the time when the points system was in place to get into the University of Malta. I therefore have a nagging feeling that he was compelled to go to study abroad because of the system in place at the time. Hadn’t his parents been able to afford sending him he might have never become a doctor and not Malta but the world would have been a loser.
Well done again and a big thank you to him and his parents.
I am really proud that it is a Maltese person who was involved in such an important discovery.
Without wanting to take any credit or limelight from Dr. Debono, I like Penny feel that we should also be proud of another Maltese doctor involved in this research.
His name is Dr Gerhardt Attard know to his friends as Gert. I will not repeat what Penny has said but it is worth knowing that it is two maltese doctors that we should be really proud off for the research into a cure for prostate cancer.
Well done to the two of them- you made us all very proud.
http://itn.co.uk/news/03011b36c76bf9e27749f7dd84e4aa04.html
I think this is material for a Nobel prize, it would be the first Maltese .
This is another link with an interview with Dr G Attard on BBC:
http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/19618
I’d like to tell you how important this is…
My father, several uncles, and many males in our family have either died of this killer or currently have it. It is important to me and to millions of people.
And if there is a way they can use this breakthrough to take care of other cancers then his star will shine even brighter.
Hopefully there will be a way to get the price low enough so that average people will be able to benefit from this very important discovery.
This work is important to the world.
Thank you Johann.
@H Baxxter
“He’s just doing his job. There are other Maltese all over the world, doing equally worthy stuff, and doing it well. But they’re unlucky enough to be doing things which your average reader is not familiar with. And so they get no coverage.”
Really? so there are other Maltese who have made dramatic discoveries and found cures for cancer which the average reader is not familiar with???
I just do my job, the average accountant or businessman just does his job. But when someone manages to find a key that unlocks a door to a new discovery, its not just doing a job. It is the result of knowledge, painstaking research, and an unusual insight. Otherwise everyone else would have seen it.
Please don’t begrudge a man due recognition. And by all means lets have the names of those illustrious people doing equally important stuff but which are going unrecognised. Its about time this country stopped used the mantra that we’re just a small country, with limited this and that. We are not and individuals like de Bono keep proving that we are not. I would love to arrive at MIA and instead of seeing those horrendous dioramas, a simple sentence saying:
‘Welcome to Malta , the birthplace of Sir Temi Zammit, who eradicted Unulant Fever, Prof Edward de Bono creator of Lateral Thinking,Joseph Calleja, tenor, etc.’
Now that would be a reall warm welcome.
So if you know of someone else we should celebrate then please H. Baxter, tell us so that we can celebrate together and tell teh world about us!
It seems to me that it is almost wrong to be proud of a Maltese accomplishment – at least that’s the impression that the local media gives by not giving it the coverage it deserves.
It is almost as if being Maltese is something to be ashamed like genital warts. On the other hand, being “Nazzjonalist” or “Laburist” is a badge people wear with (misplaced) pride side-by-side with being “mat-Taljani”, “mal-united” etc.
It is a great pity that while no one should have to die for one’s country, patriotism should be a greater sentiment than partisanism.
I know the family very well, his father in fact is my father’s cousin. Johan’s parents must be so proud……..coming from the world of health, I can only say ‘well done’………having lost my father to CA Prostrate, this is a big achievement………..and knowing that a Maltese person is so much involved in thsi discovery makes me oh so proud to be Maltese.
WELL DONE JOHANN
@ Antoine
“It is almost as if being Maltese is something to be ashamed like genital warts”
for some of us maltese living abroad admitting we are Maltese is actually WORSE than admitting to genital warts,
being treated so well in the UK it is very embarrassing to hear , from people who visited Malta, that they were ripped off continously by bus-drivers, that their accomodation was dirty, that airmalta’s customer service is very poor, that taxi-drivers were rude, that beaches were dirty etc etc,
when asked by an englishman what nationality I am, I cringe
@London Area: oh, I wouldn’t bother about that. I love saying that I’m Maltese. It’s actually quite exotic, given that there are so few of us in the world. Imagine having to admit to coming from Birmingham or Brixton.
@ Daphne
“Imagine having to admit to coming from Birmingham or Brixton.”
Tourists don’t get assaulted by bus-drivers on a regular basis in Brixton or Birmingham.
Malta is sliding into an anarchy and I no longer advise my friends to visit there for a holiday. I also urged the local business community to cancel a conference they were organising in Malta, imagine how traumatic it would have been for the organisers to have their business clients face such a fracas as last week with such riots and thugs on the street beating people up at random. Most of all I stongly advise any dark-colourd people not to visit Malta in case they would accidentally wander into Paceville and get beaten up for no reason except for their skin colour.
No, London Area, but you do get mugged at knifepoint where you live, and it’s really not safe for women to walk about at night alone or even in twos. There’s that to consider. Last month I was in Glasgow. The people were amazingly friendly, to the extent of stopping me in the street to ask if they could help if I looked like I couldn’t find the right corner (it’s never happened to me anywhere), and even really busy shop-girls would strike up a conversation while ringing up the bill. But then, two women were brutally murdered in just the couple of days I was there, one of them at a restaurant I had been to the evening before. She worked there, and the murderer got her while she was locking up at night. She was a Greek student about the age of my own kids, at university there. The other woman was assaulted in the few metres’ walk between her parked car and her flat. She was dragged into a nearby garden, raped and knifed to death, and she didn’t live in a bad area, either. Come on, let’s keep things in perspective.
Does Mater Dei, a state of the art teaching hospital, offer similar research facilities for Maltese doctors?
How many of the chair holders (academic professors) at the medical school of Malta have published so prolifically as many of the successful Maltese doctors away from Malta?
An academic saying is “publish or perish”. Many medical academics in Malta should actually “perish” and so have more time to dwell in their respective well-remunerative private practice.
London Area – Please don’t go down that road. I have visited London only three times (I’m not at all fond of the place): the first as a child, the latter two in my twenties.
On both the last two occasions, upon my arrival at Heathrow I was questioned ad eternum, presumably because of my very Maltese (or should I say Semitic?) appearance.
Leaving London, I was meted out the same treatment, even having my baggage (and also the purse hanging round my neck) searched PRIOR to departure. My husband, whose colouring is much lighter than mine, was treated in an entirely different manner. And this was 1997, way before the fears of terrorism.
Racism exists everywhere, London Area, and it is not always “blacks” who are at the receiving end.
Londo Area – “when asked by an englishman what nationality I am, I cringe”
Why? Yes, many Maltese are an embarrassment, but then are not British lager louts too?
@Amanda
“but then are not British lager louts too?”
Ofcourse, and american rednecks and all countries have their own louts too! In Malta, being so small we just seem to see a lot more of them!
But still, on the whole I think we compare very favourably in terms of safety to cities abroad, especially London I would say!
Amanda Mallia – 1997 was not “way before the fears of terrorism”. Unfortunately terrorism did not start with 9/11. For example in the mid-80s people were killed in terrorist attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports and in the bombing of a nightclub in what was then West Berlin. Then came the terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988 which left 270 people dead. That flight left Heathrow but subsequent investigations showed that the suitcase containing the bomb originated from Luqa airport. That’s the reason why Maltese people were given the special treatment when travelling through Heathrow during the 90s. Things eventually returned to what anyone would expect to come across when passing through an international airport.
@ Amanda Mallia : at Heathrow: you would have been interviewed by an Indian Hindu , who’s English is more like that of “thousand apologies” (Ranjit?) of “Mind your Language ” fame. Remember the Green Covered Passport? They thought we were Libyans.
John Schembri, you’re right. The Green Covered Passport didn’t help matters, and it wasn’t just in the UK. Another museum piece from the il-Quddiem fis-Sliem years.
John Schembri – You’re being racist too.
(Incidentally, “Ranjit” (Mr Abrahams?)has been a resident of Gozo for around the last 20 years, if I am not mistaken. He obviously likes it here more than you like his accent.)
my name is Leonard but my son calls me Joey – I may have been wrong with the “pre-terrorism fears” statement, but why, oh why, should I be treated with suspicion because of my darker complexion, whilst my husband who I am travelling with is not, simply because of his fairer skin?
“That’s the reason why Maltese people were given the special treatment when travelling through Heathrow during the 90s.” – My husband is Maltese too.
This topic is actually about Maltese compatriots, who have achieved eminent status away from their home country.
Leonard Joey has mentioned Pan Am and Lockerbie.
It might be of interest to know that the outstanding forensic examiner in the Lockerbie case was Prof.Dr.Anthony Busuttil, now Emeritus Professor of Forensic Medicine and Head of Forensic Medicine Section, Division of Pathology, The University of Edinburgh.
http://www.lifelong.ed.ac.uk/cpd/courseinfo/engineering/anthony_busuttil.html
http://www.expertsearch.co.uk/cgi-bin/find_expert?1501
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080727/social/maltese-dentist-awarded-order-of-canada
Sunday, 27th July 2008
Maltese dentist awarded Order of Canada
Prof. George Zarb is the first Maltese-Canadian to be awarded membership in the Order of Canada.
Prof. Zarb, a University of Malta graduate, left for the United States in 1960 as a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship and pursued graduate and clinical specialty studies at the University of Michigan and Ohio State University.
He was invited to join the full-time staff of the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Toronto in 1966 and rose rapidly through the academic ranks to full professor in less than a decade.
Throughout his 39-year career at the university, Prof. Zarb served as professor and department head in his discipline and as associate dean for clinical sciences.
Prof. Zarb has written over 150 papers. He has finished co-authoring his 14th textbook and has contributed chapters to several others.
He is also editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Prosthodontics.
Dear Amanda – I was making a particular point with regard to Heathrow. In the period we’re referring to there were times when I had to watch while officials dismantled my pens and meticulously examined their contents. But you do have a point about skin colour and racism. The funny thing (if that’s a correct way of putting it)is it works both ways Having a darker complexion can be a plus when travelling in certain countries; strolling through while the “fairer” ones get the “treatment”. Unfortunately it seems that when travelling as a couple, you and your husband are in a lose-lose situation ;)
No Amanda , I am not being racist , to tell you the truth I LIKE their accent , (probably as much as Abrahams loves Gozo) they make me smile, probably because of Ranjit . He also drove the TUK-TUK in the James Bond film Octopussy . ( Was “Mind your language” racist?)
http://www.jamesbondmm.co.uk/vehicles/tuk-tuk-taxi.php?id=001.
I was confused once when one shook his head (European body language for ” NO “) when he meant “YES” or “OK”.