Living Proof is a docudrama about Dr.Dennis Slamon, who develops an effective drug to combat breast cancer. This movie
starts out in 1988 at UCLA, where 200,000 women a year are diagnosed with breast cancer. Dr.Slamon's drug is called
Her-2 which is a body protein that turns off cancer cells in the body. He is waiting to do a mouse study of the Her-2. Gentech
is the company finding his research but they are dragging their feet in allowing him to do his mouse study. With help
from his friends, Dr. Slamon gets Revlon to help with $400,000.00 to move his research to the mouse study.Gentech finally
approved the mouse study because one of the boss's mother was diagnosised with breast cancer.Her-2 was a success.
The next phase was a human trial. In 1990, Nicole Wilson was the first human to receive Her-2. Her cancer went into remission
for 2 years after just one shot of Her-2. Her-2 was then renamed Herceptin. Phase 1 of the human trials was Ok'd
by Gentech, but they fired Dr. Slamon as head physician.Dr. Slamon was allowed to do all the work of finding the 15 women
needed for Phase 1. In Phase 1, the women were is get 2 weeks of chemo & 1 week of Herceptin. During the 1.5 years it
took to get to the next phase, 3 women died from their cancer. All though 1 woman was completely cured of her breast cancer.
In 1996, Dr. Slamon proved that Herceptin works!!!
In 1998 the FDA approved the use of Herceptin in the treatment of breast cancer. It took 18 years to get to this point.
Dr.Slamon still works at UCLA as head of the Hematology/Oncology Dept.
