Two associate professors of medicine at Georgetown University edical Center’ Lombardi Cancer Center recently received national recognition signified by a grant and national award.

The National Cancer Institute awarded Dr. John Marshall $330,000 per year for five years for the development of Tricom, an experimental cancer vaccine. His upcoming research will mark the first time the Tricom vaccine has been tested on humans.

“This vaccine gives us a powerful new weapon in our cancer fighting arsenal,” Marshall said. “Our trials involving mice show that Tricom works three times better than other vaccines we’ve experimented with, and I am very hopeful that the people in our new study will respond at least as well.”

Marshall’s vaccine uses a virus to build up the immune system and increase the production of T-cells, which aid the body in destroying the cancer cells. The Tricom vaccine has fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy because it targets only cancer cells. Chemotherapy, the traditional treatment for cancer, kills both healthy and cancer cells.

Marshall hopes the Tricom vaccine will build on the success of the Alvac cancer vaccine which works by encouraging the immune system to kill its own cancer cells. Since 1997, approximately 55 cancer patients have been treated with the Alvac vaccine, according to Marshall. He said that because the trial group was small, definitive conclusions about its success rate cannot be determined.

Additionally, Dr. Jane Ingham was one of 47 physicians nationwide to be nominated by medical students for the 2000 Association of American Medical Colleges Humanism in Medicine Award. Ingham is also the director of the palliative care program at the Lombardi Cancer Center.

The Lombardi Cancer Center’s Palliative Care Program aims to help patients and their families realize the greatest possible quality of life by working with many experts in the cancer field. By exploring pain management and other practical, psychological, social and spiritual approaches to illness, the program aims to enhance the patient’s condition, according to a press release from the LCC.

“Palliative care is an emerging specialty here in the United States, and I am thrilled that the medical students recognized my program in this way,” Ingham said. “The fact that they are noticing the importance of this aspect of care means a great deal to me.”

Recognizing Ingham’s dedication to her work in palliative care, students also acknowledged her optimism, realism and sensitivity.

“[Dr. Ingham] puts her patients above all else,” wrote John Deeken (M ’01), in a letter to the selection committee. “She expends tremendous time and energy in taking care of all aspects of patient’s needs . from pain control to emotional concerns to proper living arrangements to the well-being of the family caregivers of her patients.”

Sponsored by the AAMC and the Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative, the Humanism in Medicine Award is awarded annually to medical school faculty physicians who “embody the finest qualities of a healer and teacher.”