Cancer Society Hears Plea for Cell Research Funding

A 1990 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry addressed about 800 American Cancer Society volunteers Friday, explaining how continued funding for cell research is critical to finding future solutions to various forms of cancer and possibly AIDS.

Thomas Cech, who conducts research on both normal and abnormal cell growth through the study of ribonucleic acids at the University of Colorado, said research in this area--for which he won the Nobel--at first appeared unrelated to understanding cancer.

“There didn’t seem to be any direct relationship,” he said. “More recently, we’ve discovered there may be more direct value to the discovery.”

The chemist was the keynote speaker at the ACS’s volunteer convention at the Marriott Hotel. A spokesman said the gathering is an annual event aimed at teaching volunteers effective ways of fund-raising for the organization. He said Cech was invited because some of his research funding in the past has come from the American Cancer Society.

Cech explained to the volunteers that his research has revealed that the enzyme is more than just a carrier of genetic information or critical component for protein synthesis--common textbook explanations. He said ribonucleic acids have a much more active role in metabolism and possibly can counteract unwanted molecules in a cell by attacking those molecules responsible for such diseases as cervical and liver cancer.

“These molecules have the ability to snip unwanted molecules in a cell,” he said. “It may be used (in the future) pharmaceutically through injections.”

However, Cech stressed that immediate application of cell research and other studies aimed at combatting diseases such as cancer are still years away.

“Just because something is effective in the lab doesn’t mean it will be effective in a living person,” he said.

The American Cancer Society donates about $90 million annually to scientific research, organizers said.