Stuart Shifrin, who originally volunteered to be one of the first teachers in a research internship program at the National Institutes of Health sixteen years ago, has since become a key player in the discovery and development of a promising new cancer drug. When the opportunity to participate in the Student and Teacher Internship Program, sponsored by Howard Hughes Medical Institute -- that places high school students and teachers in NIH labs to experience science in action -- Shifrin thought it might be an educational experience in how scientific research is conducted and nothing more.

Because Shifrin lost his father to colon cancer, he asked to spend his time in the summer research project at the National Cancer Institute. He found himself in Leonard M. Neckers lab. At the time, Neckers and his postdoctoral fellow, Luke Whitesell, were examining a group of drugs that appeared to turn cancerous cells into normal cells. They asked Shifrin to put some drugs called benzoquinone ansamycins on cancer cells and report back what happened. The rest of the serendipitous story in cancer drug history-in-the-making is here.

Photo credit: Tom Kochel