Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

CAMC Doctor Featured in Ken Burns’ Cancer Documentary

Dr. Suzanne M. Cole, a hematologist and oncologist, knows she’s not always going to win the battle with cancer.

“Healing is not always about eternal life. Healing is helping people to have a good death. There’s some kind of healing in that too,” Cole says in the documentary “Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies,” March 30 – Apr. 1 at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Dr. Cole is featured in the third and final episode of this all-inclusive documentary presented by Ken Burns. During this episode, Dr. Cole meets with a patient who isn’t responding to treatment and helps another patient cope with the high cost of medicine. Charleston Area Medical Center, where Cole practiced at the time, is also prominently featured in the film.

You can watch Dr. Cole in this 3-minute video from the documentary.

“We are very excited about CAMC’s role in the making of this documentary,” said Elizabeth Pellegrin, chief marketing officer for CAMC. “And of course the broadcast timing is perfect because we are in the process of opening our new cancer treatment facility.”

Listen to an interview with Dr. Suzanne Cole on Monday at 7:41 a.m. during West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s West Virginia Morning, on the radio of at wvpublic.org.

Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, a three-part, six-hour television documentary begins Monday, March 30 at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting and continues Tuesday, March 31 and Wednesday, April 1 also at 9 p.m.

The series matches the epic scale of the disease, reshaping the way the public sees cancer and stripping away some of the fear and misunderstanding that has long surrounded it. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience and perseverance but also of hubris, paternalism and misperception. Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective and a biographer’s passion.

“West Virginia Public Broadcasting is proud to bring this documentary to our region, which suffers from high cancer rates, and also offers some of the most compassionate care for cancer patients you’ll find anywhere,” said Scott Finn, executive director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Episode Descriptions

Monday, March 30 at 9 p.m. — “Magic Bullets” centers on the story of Sidney Farber’s evolution from obscure pathologist to renowned scientist and powerful public advocate who, together with the philanthropist Mary Lasker, galvanizes the federal government’s War on Cancer. The episode also ventures back in time to recount the stories of the early efforts to understand and fight the disease, from medieval apothecaries to the first use of radical surgery and radiation at the turn of the 20^th Century.

Tuesday, March 31 at 9 p.m. — “The Blind Men and the Elephant” chronicles the vital decades between the declaration of the federal government’s War on Cancer in 1971, and the breakthrough drugs Herceptin and Gleevec in 2000. This tumultuous thirty-year period was characterized by a widening chasm between the research lab, in which vital discoveries were finally illuminating the most basic nature of the cancer cell, and the clinic, in which frustration over the lack of new therapies led some to take extreme measures to fight the disease. By the end of the century, however, the gap between lab and clinic had been bridged, and the first targeted therapies – drugs based on an understanding of the cancer cell’s vulnerabilities – were coming into wide use.

Wednesday, April 1 at 9 p.m. — “Finding the Achilles Heel” covers the years from 2000 to today. As the millennium dawns, there is enormous optimism that targeted therapy will rapidly result in the conquest of cancer. But, as more is understood about the variety of genetic mutations and cancer’s cellular adaptability, optimism gives way to despair. In place of quick cures, many call for a new strategy of prevention and early detection, which hold the promise of curtailing or stopping some cancers before they take hold.

Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies is based on the 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. This “biography” covers its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the 20^th Century to cure, control and conquer it, to a radical new understanding of its essence. The series also features the current status of cancer knowledge and treatment —the dawn of an era in which cancer may become a chronic or curable illness rather than its historic death sentence.

The project includes a robust website — www.TheStoryofCancer.org — and social and digital media components, including an extensive curriculum for K-12 schools, colleges and universities, nursing and medical schools.. Follow the discussion on social media: @CancerFilm on Twitter and www.facebook.com/CancerFilm on Facebook.

Cancer Stories: Lessons in Love, Loss and Hope

In 2003, West Virginia University’s P.I. Reed School of Journalism teamed up with West Virginia Public Broadcasting for a documentary chronicling the lives of five cancer patients from diagnosis through their treatments.

Cancer Stories: Lessons in Love, Loss and Hope won a Midwestern Regional Emmy in the Informational Program category. The documentary also won an Award of Excellence in the 2004 Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts documentary category.

More than 30 WVU journalism students worked on the project. Broadcast, news-editorial and photography students worked for nearly a year and a half to create the documentary and a later released a book through WVU Press. West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s John Nakashima served as editor of the film and Pat Sergent was the program manager.

You can watch this film below. Also, be sure to tune into the television premiere Ken Burns’ three-part series Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies on March 30, 31 and April 1 at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Dr. Suzanne M. Cole, a hematologist and oncologist, is featured in the third and final episode of this all-inclusive documentary presented by Ken Burns. Charleston Area Medical Center, where Cole practiced at the time, is also prominently featured in the film.

During this episode, Dr. Cole meets with a patient who isn’t responding to treatment and helps another patient cope with the high cost of medicine.

“Healing is not always about eternal life. Healing is helping people to have a good death. There’s some kind of healing in that too,” Cole says in one of the segments of the television documentary Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Jk4y8vgIA

Series Will Explore The Past And Present Of Cancer Research

Special thanks to Charleston Area Medical Center, exclusive underwriter for West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s presentation of Ken Burns Presents Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, A Film By Barak Goodman.

A Charleston Area Medical Center doctor, Suzanne Cole, is featured in episode three’s exploration of the current state of cancer treatment. Watch episode three, “Finding An Achilles Heel,” April 1 at 9 p.m. on WVPB.

Dr. Sidney Farber with colleagues, c. 1950.

CANCER: THE EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES tells the comprehensive story of cancer, from its first description in an ancient Egyptian scroll to the gleaming laboratories of modern research institutions. At six hours, the film interweaves a sweeping historical narrative with intimate stories about contemporary patients, and an investigation into the latest scientific breakthroughs that may have brought us, at long last, within sight of lasting cures.

In addition to the television series, the website cancerfilms.org contains a producer’s blog, media gallery and story wall.

The film comprises the following three episodes:

Episode 1 (9 p.m., Monday, March 30) MAGIC BULLETS: The search for a “cure” for cancer is the greatest epic in the history of science. It spans centuries and continents, and is full of its share of heroes, villains and sudden vertiginous twists. This episode follows that centuries-long search, but centers on the story of Sidney Farber, who, defying conventional wisdom in the late 1940s, introduces the modern era of chemotherapy, eventually galvanizing a full-scale national “war on cancer.” Interwoven with Farber’s narrative is the contemporary story of little Olivia Blair, who at 14-months old is diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which spreads to her brain and spinal column. The film follows her as she and her parents struggle with the many hardships and decisions foisted upon a cancer patient. She remains in full remission a year after her diagnosis, but is still on her journey to finish her three-year treatment plan.

Episode 2 (9 p.m., March 31) THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT: This episode picks up the story in the wake of the declaration of a “war on cancer” by Richard Nixon in 1971. Flush with optimism and awash with federal dollars, the cancer field plunges forward in search of a cure. In the lab, rapid progress is made in understanding the essential nature of the cancer cell, leading to the revolutionary discovery of the genetic basis of cancer. But at the bedside, where patients are treated, few new therapies become available, and a sense of disillusionment takes hold, leading some patients and doctors to take desperate measures. It is not until the late 1990s that the advances in research begin to translate into more precise targeted therapies with the breakthrough drugs Gleevec and Herceptin. Following the history during these fraught decades, the film intertwines the contemporary story of Dr. Lori Wilson, a surgical oncologist who is diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in both breasts in 2013. Her emotional and physical struggles with the disease provide a bracing counterpoint to the historical narrative.

Episode 3 (9 p.m., Wednesday, April 1) FINDING AN ACHILLES HEEL: This episode picks up the story at another moment of buoyant optimism in the cancer world: Scientists believe they have cracked the essential mystery of the malignant cell and the first targeted therapies have been developed, with the promise of many more to follow. But very quickly cancer reveals new layers of complexity and a formidable array of unforeseen defenses. In the disappointment that follows, many call for a new focus on prevention and early detection as the most promising fronts in the war on cancer. But other scientists are undeterred, and by the second decade of the 2000s their work pays off. The bewildering complexity of the cancer cell, so recently considered unassailable, yields to a more ordered picture, revealing new vulnerabilities and avenues of attack. Perhaps most exciting of all is the prospect of harnessing the human immune system to defeat cancer. This episode includes patients Doug Rogers, a 60-year-old NASCAR mechanic with melanoma, and Emily Whitehead, a six-year-old child afflicted with leukemia. Each is a pioneer in new immunotherapy treatments, which the documentary follows as their stories unfold. Both see their advanced cancers recede and are able to resume normal lives.

The Film Project

A collaboration of Florentine Films, Laura Ziskin Pictures and WETA Washington, DC, in association with Ark Media, the series is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Simon & Schuster 2010) by Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D. Hollywood producer Laura Ziskin (Pretty Women, Spider-Man), a Stand Up To Cancer co-founder, had wanted to produce a documentary about cancer from the time she had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004. Having read an advanced review of the book, Ziskin quickly contacted Dr. Mukherjee, who awarded the rights to the Entertainment Industry Foundation on behalf of SU2C in December 2010. Simultaneously, WETA president and CEO Sharon Percy Rockefeller read the book during her treatment for cancer at The Johns Hopkins Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore. Shortly thereafter, Rockefeller connected with Burns, who lost his mother to cancer when he was 11. The two connected with Ziskin, and in early 2011 brought on filmmaker Goodman. (Ziskin, who lived with cancer for seven years, died in June 2011.)