Name: ______Date: ______Period: ______Guided Reading 1 “A Cure for Cancer?”

Answer all questions with full sentences. A. Make a PREDICTION about what the article is about. Do not just restate the title. ______

B. ANNOTATE the article as you read. Make sure that you:

o Write at least three questions in the margins that you wished the author answered. o Circle three new words. Do not circle names of things or people. o Star three important main ideas.

C. EVALUATE the article when you finish reading. What is the PURPOSE of the article? ______D. Answer the following questions after you read.

1. Question one is a summarizing question. 3. Question three is a connection question.

Why is it important for the tissues of a bone Why can someone with leukemia benefit marrow donor and bone marrow recipient from a bone marrow transplant? to match closely? a. you only get one chance to donate a. new bone marrow can cure leukemia b. parents are the only ones who can b. new bone marrow postpones the affects donate bone marrow of leukemia until later in life c. the donor’s marrow could make the c. bone marrow cures leukemia, but gives recipient sick you bone cancer instead d. rejection of bone marrow is less likely d. they can not benefit from a transplant if the tissues match closely 2. Question two is a definition question. 4. Question four is a content question.

Define the word “Leukemia”. How long is the life expectancy of someone with Anissa’s type of leukemia? a. a disorder where your blood has a hard time carrying oxygen around the body a. 20 years b. type of cancer that affects the white blood cells b. 10 years c. type of disease that makes your hands c. 6 months shake d. a disease that affects your eyesight d. 5 years

1 Question five is an open-ended opinion question. Be sure to read all of the requirements of the question. For example, if the question asks for two examples of supporting details from the text, be sure to give two. Write your answer in the space provided.

5a. Do you think that it is ethical for a parent to volunteer a young child to be a bone marrow donor for an older sister or brother? Give reasons for your answer.

5b. Do you think that it is ethical for a parent to conceive a child to be a bone marrow donor for an older sibling? Explain your answer.

“A Cure for Cancer?” 2 Doctors have saved many lives by performing withdrawn with a long needle that is inserted into organ transplants – replacing the diseased organ the hip bone. At most, the donor may experience of one person with the healthy organ of another. some discomfort when she or he awakes. Many adults or adolescents are willing, and even eager, to volunteer as organ or tissue donors. But Having a Child to Save a Child what if the potential donor is a young child? Do Anissa Ayala was diagnosed with leukemia parents have the right to volunteer their child as when she was 15 years old. Anissa’s doctors told an organ or tissue donor? More importantly, is it her parents that 80 to 90 percent of patients with right for parents to conceive a child in the hope her type of leukemia have a life expectancy of that the baby can be an organ or tissue donor to five years unless they have a bone marrow its older brother or sister? transplant. Anissa’s parents launched a nationwide search for a compatible donor, but Bone Marrow Transplants they were unable to find one. Leukemia is a type of cancer that affects the leukocytes, or white blood cells. White blood Anissa’s parents then decided to conceive cells are produced in bone marrow in the skull, another child in the hope that he or she would ribs, and pelvis. Leukemia disrupts the have the same tissue type as Anissa. The Ayala’s production of healthy white blood cells and may were lucky – prenatal tests showed that the fetus eventually lead to death because the victim has a could be a bone marrow donor. Anissa received a weakened immune system. Thousands of bone marrow transplant from her little sister, children in the United States suffer from Marissa, when Anissa was 19 and Marissa was leukemia. The best hope for curing them is a 14 months old. bone marrow transplant. A bone marrow transplant is the transfer of bone marrow cells A recent surgery of bone marrow transplant from one person to another. Bone marrow centers turned up at least 40 cases in which transplants can restore the proper function of the families admitted that they had conceived a child bone marrow and cure leukemia. to be a bone marrow donor. One couple had conceived three children in an effort to get a The success of a bone marrow transplant donor. In another case, a woman who had been depends largely on the compatibility of the tissue divorced and remarried was artificially types of the donor and the recipient. If the tissues inseminated with the sperm of her first husband do not match closely, the immune system will when a child from her first marriage was reject the donor’s bone marrow cells. Even diagnosed with leukemia. patients who do find a donor with compatible tissue have only about a 20 percent chance of Ethical Questions surviving leukemia. The more closely the donor People who argue against conceiving children to and recipient are related, the greater the chance be tissue donors say that children conceived just that they will have the same tissue type, and the for the purpose of being tissue doors are likely to more likely the transplant will succeed. In most be unloved or unwanted. In addition, it is cases, the best bone marrow donor is a patient’s dehumanizing to consider children as little more brother or sister. Often even a patient’s parents than potential tissue sources. And what happens do not have bone marrow that is compatible with to a family when children who are conceived to their children’s tissue because their children are a be tissue donors turn out not to be compatible combination of both their tissues, not just one. with their siblings? Will these children still be loved by their parents? The transplant operation poses little risk to the donor. During the donation procedure, the donor People who approve of the decision say that the is anesthetized, and the bone marrow is need for a bone-marrow donor is a perfectly

3 good reason to have a child. Parents who conceive a child with the hope of getting a tissue donor will have at least that child if the older child dies. Also, if the child with leukemia dies, the parents will know that they did everything in their power to save their child. Few parents would let their child die without doing everything possible to save him or her. If everything does work out and the younger Dr. Carl June - Pictured are immune t-cells binding to beads which cause the leukemia cells to divide. brother or sister grows up knowing they saved their older siblings life, what greater gift could The results were groundbreaking. A few weeks there be? after administering the treatment there was no trace of any leukemic cells in Ludwig's blood or No Longer Left to Chance bone marrow. His CT scan was free of any This issue was recently widely publicized with bulging lymph nodes. Now a year later, Bill the release of a film in 2009 called “My Sister’s Ludwig is on his feet playing golf and doing Keeper.” The film is based on a novel by Jodi yard work. Doctors cannot say that he is Picoult with the same title and depicts a young completely cured but the altered T-cells in his girl who is put through painful procedures in blood are tailored to multiply and could fight off order to keep her older sister alive. In the story, any relapses in the future. the parents use a technology that is currently available where the embryo is tested for The research team led by Dr. Carl June is compatibility before it is placed inside the optimistic about the results. Two other patients mother to grow. During the course of the movie, who have undergone the treatment are in the younger sister sues her parents for the rights remission. And although the treatment is still to her own body, stating that it should be her experimental and not available outside of clinical decision whether to continue donating bone studies, scientists say this could be a turning marrow and eventually organs to her sister. point in the fight against cancer. This new treatment wouldn't just be for leukemia patients, A Cure for Leukemia? other cancers may also be treated with this new A New Jersey man who seemed to be dying of approach. Other experts in the field hailed the leukemia is the first patient to get an new treatment as a major advance. experimental cancer treatment that uses a defanged form of HIV. William Ludwig, then "It's great work," said Dr. Walter J. Urba of the 65, is one of only three patients who have Providence Cancer Center and Earle A. Chiles received the bold treatment at the University of Research Institute in Portland, Ore. "I feel very Pennsylvania for his form of leukemia, called positive about this new technology. CLL. Conceptually, it's very, very big." But he warned cancer patients that the new treatment still has a The procedure removed a billion of Ludwig's T- ways to go and that it has to be repeated in more cells that normally fight infections and then patients. genetically altered them to attack his cancer cells. The treatment uses a disabled form of Urba may get his wish as June's team is planning HIV1 to carry cancer-fighting genes into the on testing the treatment with other patients with patient's T-cells to genetically alter them. The different tumors. His next goal is administering altered T-cells would reproduce chimeric antigen the treatment to patients with hard-to-treat receptors that would seek out and eradicate cancers like mesothelioma and pancreatic cancer. cancer cells.

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