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Alumnus Dao works
24-7 in fight against cancer
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James
Dao, who immigrated to the U.S. from China at age 11, is founder,
president, and CEO of Genyous, which is working to develop
diagnostics and therapeutics that could make cancer—like
heart disease—a medically manageable disease. He also
endowed the C. Lester Hogan Chair in EECS, which he refers
to as “a humble gesture to honor a great friend.”
PHOTO COURTESY JAMES DAO |
James Dao (B.S.’60 EECS) is a man with a mission. Without
formal training in medicine or biology, Dao got involved in cancer
research in the 1970s, an interest that only intensified after
losing both his mother and mother-in-law to cancer in the 1980s.
Now he works around the clock in the search for diagnostic tests
and nontoxic multi-mechanism treatments that could dramatically
reduce cancer deaths worldwide.
The Silicon Valley inventor and entrepreneur started his 35-year
career by founding ETEC Systems, where he developed a new generation
of scanning electron microscopes that accelerated the pace of
cancer research in the 1970s. After profoundly contributing to
cancer research, ETEC applied its core technologies to create
the industry standards for semiconductor mask production that
are still in use today. Upon retiring in 1998, Dao founded Genyous
to work on products to prevent, detect, and treat early-stage
cancers.
“I want to make things that the whole world—not just
a few rich people—can afford,” says Dao, now president
and CEO of Genyous. “We know we could be saving tens of
thousands of lives every year, and that is a great motivator.”
Genyous’s initial product is the Automated Quantitative
Cytometry (AQC) test for lung cancer. The deadliest of all cancers,
lung cancer will cause an estimated 160,440 deaths in the U.S.
this year, 28 percent of all cancer deaths and more than colorectal,
breast, and prostate cancers combined. The test, developed by
Perceptronix Medical Inc., a Genyous subsidiary in Canada, uses
pattern recognition software to analyze epithelial cells from
a sputum sample for correlating with known cancer-associated changes.
Clinical trials were launched in 2003 and, Dao says, the AQC test
could be in use around the world within two to three years. Cheap,
fast, and noninvasive, the test is highly accurate in detecting
cancers at an early stage, when long-term survival is more than
70%. Lung cancer cannot now be detected until much later, when
a lesion or tumor is visible radiologically, and survival at that
point is only 15%. This test gets a jump on detection by pinpointing
cancerous changes in the DNA at a molecular level, well before
they manifest clinically.
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The
scanning electron microscope image (above left) shows delicate
lung epithelial tissue in vitro being studied for the effects
of sustained-release therapeutic drug particles.
PHOTO COURTESY JENNIFER FIEGEL AND JUSTIN HANES, DEPARTMENT
OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY |
“We need a new paradigm for treating cancer,” Dao
says, “one that uses early detection and treatment like
we do in treating heart disease.” Dao is trying to steer
American health care away from “heroic medicine”—the
expensive, invasive, and traumatic surgical and toxic measures
often used as a last resort—toward prevention and treatment
of healthy individuals before disease strikes.
“The biology of cancer is so complex, we need to employ
multiple mechanisms and integrate knowledge from all over the
world,” Dao says. The multidisciplinary approach embraces
many disciplines, from basic sciences to clinical specialties
like pathology, oncology, and pulmonology, and employs a wide
range of tools, including genomics, nanotechnology, and bioinformatics.
To accomplish the translational research and clinical trials,
Genyous works with major academic and medical centers in Europe,
China, and North America, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UC
Berkeley and the British Columbia Cancer Agency, one of the first
institutions to deploy cytology testing for screening cervical
cancer in the early 1950s.
Also in the works are new multi-mechanism therapies, including
immune system boosters that can better target cancer cells and
leave healthy tissue unharmed. In June 2004, the FDA implemented
new guidelines for botanical drugs, paving the way for approval
of multi-mechanism medicines.
Dao envisions a day in the not-too-distant future when early stages
of cancer could be treated with safe oral drugs instead of the
highly toxic infusion therapies used today. He sometimes sounds
like a man who is racing against time.
“I retired six years ago, but now I’m working harder
than ever,” he says. “When I goof off, I feel like
I’m hurting someone.”
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