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Scripps can make an astronomical difference

By Howard Goodman
February 10, 2005 - Scripps Florida doesn't have a location. It just has a temporary building and a handful of scientists at work. Yet it's already the sun in the Palm Beach County universe. Money is orbiting around it.

For proof, take a look at Saturday's Leukemia & Lymphoma Society gala. The society ball's planners expect their glittering Wish Upon A Star dinner-dance at Palm Beach's Mar-a-Lago to net more than $1.2 million. That's five times what the annual fete took in last year.

"We never thought we would reach these kinds of numbers," said Caroline Warburton, the society's deputy executive director, who had to buy a nicer dress to match the event's escalating glamour. "We couldn't be more grateful. It's just phenomenal."

What's going on? Is there suddenly a leukemia epidemic and people are mobilizing? Is awareness of lymphoma reaching new heights?

No, although the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is certainly a worthy cause. It aims to find a cure for those dreaded diseases as well as Hodgkin's and myeloma. It helps patients who are stricken with them.

The reason they've become this year's hot charity is because Scripps President Richard Lerner agreed to be the bash's honorary chairman.

As a chemist, Dr. Lerner heads one of America's most respected and prosperous biomedical enterprises in The Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla, Calif. It's home to 2,900 employees, including 270 professors, three of them Nobel laureates. It's the largest institute financed by the National Institutes of Health.

Yet as an alchemist -- one who turns base metals into gold -- Lerner might even be better.

Such is belief in Lerner's Midas touch that a Who's Who of landowners and developers in the Scripps location saga has paid big money for the chance to sit near him at the ball.

One choice table, costing $25,000, was bought by executives of the Lennar-Centex partnership. They're builders with big hopes that county commissioners stick to their plan to put Scripps Florida's permanent home on Mecca Farms, in as-yet undeveloped reaches west of Palm Beach Gardens.

Another $25,000 table was snatched up by S&K Worldwide Realty, representing owners of the Palm Beach Park of Commerce -- I mean, the newly renamed Florida Research Park -- which is vying to be the go-to site if Mecca falls through.

Hospital executives, too, will be spending their Saturday night in the starry-decorated Mar-a-Lago ballroom. The local medical establishment knows that Scripps spawned 40 biotech spin-off companies and brought lots of grant money and drug trials to Southern California. Why not here?

Thus, JFK Medical Center and the University MRI and Diagnostic Imaging Centers each put up $25,000 for the dinner-dance.

Politicians are pledging to be there, too.

Elizabeth Fago, the gala's chairwoman, said it's natural for people to want to associate themselves with Scripps and the medical miracles its research can yield.

An event like this ball "gives people a reality that there's somebody here in Palm Beach County that can actually make discoveries."

Fago, who owns a chain of nursing homes and is a major Republican Party fund-raiser, didn't deny the business angle. "Whether it's for a business affiliation for the future or just being a beneficiary of their science, people want to be near them."

It would be easy to decry some of these contributors for their self-interest, their preening attempts to draw Scripps' attention.

But I prefer to look at it this way: Whatever their motives, they're parting with a lot of money for scientists to battle diseases.

The evening's theme is about wishing on a star. But its real subject is a solar system.

There's a new one around here. And Scripps is at the center.

With this gala, we're starting to see the strength of its gravitational pull.

Howard Goodman's column is published Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. He can be reached at [email protected] or 561-243-6638.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/columnists/sfl-phoward10feb10,0,1319049.column?coll=sfla-news-col

Soldier returns to save his brothers life

By Mike Gellatly

4/21/05 - Desmond Conyer and his brother Michael relax at MUSC, just before the bone marrow transplant that will hopefully cure Desmonds leukemia.

One soldiers service to his country was cut short so he could return home and help his brother beat leukemia.

Desmond Conyers, 12, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) in November 2004, and the family was told that he would need to find a bone marrow donor.

In initial testing, no family members in the immediate areas were a match, so a call was made to Desmonds older brother, Michael. Michael was not immediately available as he was serving with the 175th Maintenance Unit in Kuwait.

Michael, a National Guardsman, had been deployed 11 months earlier and was not due back for some time, but with this news his unit allowed him to return home.

Thankfully Michael came home, and testing revealed that he was a match with his brother.

We were so thankful that Michael was able to be home, said Michael Conyers Sr., father of the pair. We have been blessed with his return and the news that he is a match.

The next step for the family was for Desmond to begin chemotherapy, which he would have to do in Charleston at MUSC. The chemotheraphy aims to kill the cancerous cells that are then replaced by a transplant from the donor, Michael.

The process of collecting, or harvesting the bone marrow is to replace that which is killed during chemotherapy, is done through a fairly lengthy process.

The day before the procedure, Michael was given a drug that would force stem cells from his bone marrow into his bloodstream. These cells are what is to be taken from him and used by his brothers body to hopefully create new, cancer free, bone marrow.

The day after the drug was administered, Michael was then hooked up to a machine that filtered the stem cells from his blood. He had to be attached to the machine that drew his blood out, extracted the desired components and then returned it to his body. The process took more than six hours, in which he had to be in bed.

This was undertaken last Thursday and was declared a complete success the day following the transplant. Desmond must now remain in sterile isolation so as to give the procedure the best chance to be successful in his body.

It is going to be very hard, not being able to have complete contact with him, said Michael Conyers Sr. We are relying on God, thats our strength.

The isolation period has begun and Desmond must now spend the next days without contact with his father, Michael, or mother, Virginia.

The procedure has a 70 percent rate of success, according to Conyers Sr., and so Desmond could be completely cured, but there are other options if it does not.

Due to the expense of the procedures, the family is undertaking some fundraising. This will be handled by Michaels aunt, Patricia Pringle, but will not begin until the situation is more settled.

I want to thank everyone for their prayers and thoughts, Michael Sr. said. We are doing well and feeling strong.

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