Fox Chase Recalls "The Philadelphia Chromosome" Discovery

Fox Chase Cancer Center today marked a medical milestone: the announcement, fifty years ago, of the first genetic link to cancer.

Fox Chase and Penn researchers linked a problem with chromosome 22 to chronic myeloid leukemia.

Forty-five years later, when Ryan Corbi (right) got the grim news that he had that disease, it was a shock but not a death sentence, because that discovery -- later dubbed "the Philadelphia chromosome" -- led to treatments:

"It's really opened up cancer treatments to that wonder pill of science fiction or of the hopes and dreams of all the promises of science that you could take a pill and overcome all the maladies of the human condition."

But Jeff Boyd, Fox Chase vice president of molecular medicine, says the relationship between genes and cancer is as personal as... well, your genes:

"So what the Philadelphia chromosome and the molecule that targets the Philadelphia chromosome represent are really the embryonic era of personalized genetic medicine."

The opposite of one size fits all.

Story Contributor: John Ostapkovich, KYW Newsradio
Photo #2 by John Ostapkovich