I spent the last long weekend with some family as we do, and there I had the extremely good chance to speak with an actual living and breathing scientist who came in from PEI about their work and life goal. Their name was Jon and he and his wife are the owners of Affinity Immuno, a company that provides different types of kits to laboratories across Canada and the world. He was so interesting to talk to, but sometimes his language was too technical for me to grasp. That’s when his wife jumped in and described to me their latest efforts with something called monoclonal antibodies, they even have them for sale.
Why am I bringing this up in my design blog? Two reasons, recently before my grandfather passed away his doctors found some cancer in his hip. This was maybe five years ago or so when he started complaining about weakness in his leg. He was not the type of person to complain, so it really stood out to both me and my mother. But inevitably he decided against chemo and aggressively treating the cancer in his leg due to his age and other factors. Chemo is not for the weak of heart and he was already 90 when he learned of the cancer in his leg. He and his doctors decided to go for a greater quality of life rather than an aggressive treatment plan. Which I think served him will in the final years of life because he ended up passing away in January of this year. I’m not sure what was the final diagnosis because he passed away in his home, but before his death he was in the hospital complaining of shortness of breath.
It turns out that he had fluid in his lung, they put in a port and drained a lot out over the course of his stay. My aunt thinks that it was probably because of the cancer in his leg that had spread, but we’ll never know for sure.
Something else that was mentioned back in his initial diagnosis was a treatment plan that used monoclonal antibodies to attack the cancer cells. If you didn’t know monoclonal antibodies are lab-made proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off diseases. They are specifically designed to target and bind to a single type of antigen (like a protein on the surface of a cell). Because they can individually target specific cells, they can destroy the diseased cells directly rather than affecting the whole body like chemo.
Jon was saying that this is one of the major medical breakthroughs from the past fifty years and I can’t think of anything more thoughtfully designed that literal proteins that target diseased cells in our bodies and attack them. As I write this it seems like the most beautiful artwork ever created, but I had absolutely no idea of them before this Thanksgiving.
I think this really goes to show that the science world should work with more artists to promote their work! More people should know about the scientific achievements and how they affect our lives.
