The National Health Research Institute (NHRI, 國家衛生研究院), the National Defense Medical Center (國防醫學院) and the Tri Service General Hospital (三軍總醫院) jointly set up the nation's first cancer research center (癌症研究中心) yesterday.
The center will not only offer medical services for cancer patients, but it will also focus on developing new cancer-fighting therapies, conducting clinical trials of new drugs and gene therapy.
Tri Service General Hospital will provide the center with 30 beds for clinical research, space for outpatient services and laboratories so that researchers who used to be scattered in Academia Sinica and at different hospitals can assemble at the center.
In a press conference yesterday to announce the inauguration of the research center, Jacqueline Whang-Peng (彭汪嘉康), director of the NHRI 's cancer division, stressed that the center will give priority to first and second phase clinical tests on locally-developed medicine designed to treat cancer.
Whang-Peng is currently testing the sedative thalidomide, a locally developed medicine to treat liver cancer which was banned after it was discovered to cause birth defects in 1960's.
"Thalidomide was marketed as a tranquilizer and a way to help pregnant women combat many symptoms associated with morning sickness," she said.
She said that since thalidomide could inhibit the formation of blood vessels -- a process called angiogenesis, it might block cancer growth.
"Clinical trials of thalidomide so far show satisfying results." said Peng, citing that of the 40-plus terminal liver cancer patients receiving the first and second phrase clinical trials, 30 percent remain in stable condition. Also, 5 to 10 percent have seen their tumors shrink by more than half, she said.
"Thalidomide has also been used in clinical trials to attack lung cancer, and brain cancer, as well as kidney cancer in other countries."
Apart from testing thalidomide, NHRI has successfully developed a kind of drug to cure nose cancer.
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