Ewing sarcoma is a rare but deadly form of cancer that affects young children and teens.  Worse, it’s often not diagnosed until it’s spread to other parts of the body, and treatment consists of chemotherapy, which even when it’s successful comes with serious side effects for the young patients.

Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) scientist Dr. Horacio Bach has been moved to fight the disease by a colleague in Munich, Dr. Thomas Grünewald who said “Many of these kids are going to die because of this disease – the reason I work on this is because I will do anything just to bring smiles back to their faces”

Dr. Bach is working to engineer antibodies that will attack a specific protein found in the cancer cells, but not in other cells. In this way, Dr. Bach hopes to target the cancer very aggressively while leaving healthy cells alone.

“I want to be part of this research to show that just because it’s a rare disease that’s not studied or funded much, it doesn’t mean we can’t do anything,” says Dr. Bach.

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Read more about Dr. Bach’s research.