© 2025 Public Radio Tulsa
800 South Tucker Drive
Tulsa, OK 74104
(918) 631-2577

A listener-supported service of The University of Tulsa

classical 88.7 | public radio 89.5

Donate

Play Live Radio

Next Up:

0:00

0:00

0:00 0:00

Available On Air Stations

StudioTulsa

"How a Daring Team of Parents and Doctors Forged a New Path for Medicine" (Encore)

Published June 12, 2023 at 12:29 PM CDT

Aired on Monday, June 12th.

"The story of a painful but inspiring search for a cure for a fatal disease.... A moving argument for a more focused, humane, and efficient system for conducting medical research." -- Kirkus (starred review)

(Note: This interview first aired earlier this year.) Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Amy Dockser Marcus, a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal; she won a 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting for her series of articles about cancer survivors and the social, economic, and health challenges they faced while living with the disease. Dockser Marcus joins us to talk about her book, "We the Scientists." It's an engaging group portrait of certain parents and physicians (and other patient advocates) who are effectively reshaping how medical research is conducted in the US today. Per the journal Science: "Absorbing.... Through details of perseverance, courage, and grace, frustration is ultimately eclipsed in [this book] by another theme. It is the name for the NIH drug discovery robots proposed by one of the parents: Hope."

Related Content

One Woman's Experience As A Clinical Trial 'Lab Rat'

A year after recovering from malignant melanoma, Salon.com writer Mary Elizabeth Williams found out it had returned in the form of metastatic, Stage 4 cancer. In October 2011, she started a clinical trial for a new melanoma drug. Halfway through the trial, she discusses her "life as a lab rat."
Clinical Trials Still Don't Reflect The Diversity Of America

Rae Ellen Bichell

Clinical trials are too white, with less than 2 percent of cancer studies including enough minority people to provide information that could be useful for health, a study finds.
Medicare considers covering expensive Alzheimer's drug for those in clinical trials

Jon Hamilton

Under a proposal announced Tuesday, Medicare would cover the expensive and controversial Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm — but only for those participating in clinical trials.
What It Was Like To Participate In The Clinical Trial For Moderna's COVID-19 Vaccine

Christianna Silva

PBS Newshour correspondent John Yang reflects on his experience participating in Moderna's coronavirus vaccine trial. "It started off with self-interest — I wanted to get the vaccine sooner," he says.
HHS Issues New Rules To Open Up Data From Clinical Trials

Richard Harris

The aim is to make clinical trial data available to volunteers and scientists, even if a drug or therapy being tested turns out to be a failure. That could help identify serious side effects.
Canada's Decision To Make Public More Clinical Trial Data Puts Pressure On FDA

Barbara Mantel

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration treats most data it gets on the development of new drugs and medical devices as confidential to companies. Critics say making the data public would help patients.
Coronavirus Pandemic Brings Hundreds Of U.S. Clinical Trials To A Halt

Sydney Lupkin

COVID-19 has led to the suspension of many clinical studies of experimental treatments. About a quarter of the stopped trials involved new cancer treatments, an NPR analysis finds.
Results Of Many Clinical Trials Not Being Reported

Richard Harris

Federal law requires publicly funded medical researchers to promptly report the results of many experimental treatments. But few are doing so, a review shows, and patients may be hurt.