Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Cowie's dream almost ended when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in May. She was told earlier in the year that she would deploy to Iraq this summer.

The forty-two year old mother is ready for duty after her aggressive treatment plan. She had two surgeries and a five day targeted radiation treatment called MammoSite. Elizabeth will leave later this month with the 1113th Transportation Company of San Jose, California, for at least a year transporting supplies in Iraq.

Elizabeth's mother Pearl said she "isn't surprised that her daughter still wants to deploy. I knew this would not deter her. She was just determined to go. That is the kind of person she is."

Cancer Research UK has announced its plans to develop new treatments from anti-cancer drugs that have been abandoned by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The cancer charity is asking for the opportunity to take these anti-cancer drugs and develop them for possible new cancer treatments. Under the terms of the Clinical Development Partnership, CDP, the charity would test the drugs in early trials at no cost to the company. If the drugs show promise at the end of the clinical trials, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies could retain the option to develop and market them and the charity would receive a share of the revenue.

According to the people at Cancer Research UK, developing a new drug can take a decade or more and cost as much as 500 million pounds. Only about eight percent of molecules tested in phase-one safety trials make it to market. For anti-cancer drugs the odds are even lower. In addition, mergers in the pharmaceutical industry have resulted in competing programs and hard choices about which compounds to develop -- resulting in many molecules being abandoned from further research. Sounds like a win-win-win proposition -- for the cancer patient, the cancer charity, and the cancer drug companies.