University of Pennsylvania Post Baccalaureate Program Chemistry Professor Discovers the Right Stuff
A long standing faculty member of the College of General Studies Pre-Health Post Baccalaureate Program, Dr. William Price, PhD, has developed a compound that could ultimately result in a major breakthrough in the treatment of cancer.
By Erica Lamberg, Philadelphia Inquirer
October 21, 2007
Teacher: William Price.
School: La Salle University in Philadelphia, where he is a full professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry.
Achievements: Price, of Abington, recently was awarded La Salle University's first Brother Scubillion Rousseau Justice Award, a humanitarian honor for faculty or staff.
Price has developed a compound that could become a major development in the treatment of cancer. His chemical compound, LS-5, has been shown to drastically reduce the dosage of radiation that cancer patients need.
In the traditional radiation process, the cancerous cells are destroyed along with some good cells. Price's LS-5 will reduce the number of healthy cells that are destroyed, reducing the need for dangerously high doses of radioactive treatment.
His research on LS-5 started in 2000, during a six-month sabbatical at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Since then, Price has worked on optimizing the preparation of LS-5 as well as synthesizing new analogues. His students, juniors and seniors at La Salle, carry out some of the synthetic work on new compounds.
Price, 48, earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the College of Wooster in Ohio, and a Ph. D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Maryland.
He has taught at La Salle since 1985, the year he earned his doctorate. He teaches all levels of organic chemistry and organic synthesis, as well as the course "Brave New World: Ethical Issues in Modern Science."
Question: Is this cancer-treatment discovery particularly meaningful for you?
Answer: It is. Cancer is certainly in my family. My parents both died of different cancers when I was in my early 20s, and this month, my sister is celebrating her health one year after being diagnosed and treated for Stage 3 breast cancer. It's a savage disease if not caught early.
Q: What type of research did you conduct for this discovery, and did it tie into lessons as a professor at La Salle?
A: As a synthetic organic chemist, my goals have always been to work with people on projects that have some potential to be useful in the medical field. On my sabbatical several years ago, I worked with a group in the radiation oncology department at Fox Chase Cancer Center. They were studying how certain drugs could hypersensitize cancer cells to the damaging effects of ionizing radiation.
Unfortunately, the drugs they were studying were very expensive, toxic, and difficult to isolate. Studying the problem, I found a compound that impacted the same enzymes, and I proposed that we study a series of analogues of this particular compound.
Q: Why did you name the compound LS-5?
A: Since La Salle University was generous in awarding me a sabbatical, I thought it appropriate to use the LS prefix.
Q: What will have to take place for LS-5 to reach approved status?
A: With any drug, there are a series of time-consuming clinical trials that must be carried out. The first phase is a small group of healthy people to test safety - efficacy is much further down the road. From discovery to market can be seven to 10 years.
I am not aware of any approved drugs that chemically work as well on cells as this one - making cells more vulnerable prior to radiation so that significantly lower doses can be used. If things go as preliminary tests have indicated, LS-5 may find its way into the oncology arsenal against relatively advanced tumors.
Q: Are you working on any other research projects?
A: I just began a collaboration with Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to study genetic diseases of impaired fatty acid metabolism.
Q: As an educator, how do you think you can portray a career in chemistry as an interesting career choice?
A: The stereotype of a chemist - as a singularly focused person in a stained white lab coat with very little in the way of personal skills . . . well, is unfortunate. There is much more to my life than chemistry: I'm an athlete, a musician, an environmentalist, a youth leader, a father and a husband.
To my students, I try to show them all parts of my life and encourage them to be curious, somewhat skeptical problem-solvers.
What a dean says: "Bill Price is a highly respected member of the La Salle community," said Thomas Keagy, dean of La Salle's School of Arts and Sciences.
"In addition to being an excellent teacher and prolific researcher, he exhibits all the personal characteristics of a gentle, caring and committed mentor, colleague and friend. Bill's life provides a model our students can use to help them chart their own."