Roger Oskarson, 44, a service manager at an airline was invited to the home of Israel's ambassador to Sweden, Avitar Menor, on Thursday. Oscarson is a cancer patient being treated with a new drug, VELCADEA, based on the discovery of Nobel Prize winners Avraham Hershko, Aharon Chachanover and Erwin Rose.
Avi Blizovsky, Stockholm
Roger Oskarson, 44, a service manager at an airline was invited to the home of Israel's ambassador to Sweden, Avitar Menor, on Thursday. Oscarson is a cancer patient being treated with a new drug, VELCADEA, based on the discovery of Nobel Prize winners Avraham Hershko, Aharon Chachanover and Erwin Rose.
In a conversation with the scientist website Oskarson says: "The medicine gives me life, because I have a very severe type of blood cancer that is very difficult to treat. This is the first drug that really works without having too many side effects. Since receiving the medicine, I work, hang out, carry on with my life as if nothing happened."
How much does it extend your life?
Don't know, not enough experience. Anyway, I took the drug for the first time a year ago and then we stopped because the effect was so strong that the cancer disappeared. It took a year and the cancer returned. Now I am taking the medicine again. I started it again - I will continue at least until March-April. I receive the medicine by infusion directly into the blood, within two minutes. I feel healthy.
Do you have a family, children?
I am married, no children. I work as an in-flight service manager for an airline, traveling all over the world - we decided not to have children.
We asked for the response of the winners. Prof. Aharon Chachanover told me: "I can't tell you anything about the patient because I don't know him. It is a good medicine, it is not the final medicine. Its advantage is that it is neither radiation nor a drug from the current generation, it is a drug from another generation and I hope it will lead to a breakthrough and more drugs with new strategies."
Avraham Hershko: "The drug Valcade is produced by the Boston pharmaceutical company Millennium, but the company's development staff arrived in Israel as early as 1974 and since then they have been following the development of ubiquitin research. "
"The drug is intended for the treatment of myeloma - cancer of the bone marrow. When the breakdown of proteins is accelerated, it causes the destruction of cancer cells with little damage to normal cells. These cells are particularly sensitive to ubiquitin, because in these cells there is an accumulation of proteins more than in normal cells, therefore it particularly damages these cells. This is the first step in the right direction."
"I was not so optimistic about this drug because it works to break down all the proteins. Ideally you would want the drug to target a specific protein. The medicine is not specific enough.
You started 35 years ago, 25 years ago and only now there is a cure.
What does seeing such a patient do to you?
It makes me feel good. I am a doctor by training but I haven't treated patients in a long time. I know from the literature that it causes the cancer to disappear for a period of several - two or three years. I asked, there are also some patients in Israel as an experimental drug in several places, for example in the hematology department at Rambam.
The ambassador, Avitar Menor, says in response to our question that he has been in his position for a total of four and a half months. As I recall, Manor replaced Zvi Mazal, who about a year ago damaged a work of art centered on the suicide bomber from Maksim restaurant.
And has this honor already fallen on you?
I've been to Philadelphia before, and there's a big group here from Philadelphia. They did their research at Irwin Rose's lab in Philadelphia. For me it's a circle that I close with my previous position in Philadelphia, I was also the spokesman for the embassy in London and I started my career here in Sweden, as second secretary and then as first secretary.
How do you organize such an event and how did you find out about it?
There was a phone call to the embassy, someone from the Jewish community heard it in the media, and told us 'you won the Nobel Prize'. We immediately turned on the news and it was actually announced that we had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. It took a day or two until I was able to contact both Prof. Hershko and Prof. Chachanover, first of all to see if it was true. Then we started how we as Israelis handle such an event. The Swedes are actually fine, they scheduled a time out for the embassies as well, and we chose to have a reception. It also fell with Hanukkah. It is good for Israel to be perceived not only as a country at war but as a country that produces scientists who help humanity. There are many things that are not addressed until they win an award or receive international recognition.
The media in Sweden shows great interest in the Nobel week. The whole country is following, reading, interested, look tomorrow on TV.
Is this especially important in a country that is not known as a supporter of Israel?
True, the relations between the two countries are excellent, but the attitude is critical. The government is critical of us in certain aspects and therefore it is even more important to appear in the media in the context of the Nobel Prize.
And I understand you're the one who brought the patient here?
And we also found the guy receiving an experimental drug. I saw him appearing on TV, we decided to contact Karolinska (the famous medical center in Sweden. A.B.) It turned out that the whole story was true and then we said that this was an opportunity to bring him together with Hershko and Chechenover. He was enthusiastic, and considered it a great honor.
