Who: Ron Louie was a pediatric hematologist-oncologist before becoming the primary caregiver for his wife, who has Early Onset Alzheimer’s Dementia (AD).
Along with his conventional training, he did one year of pathology residency, including time with neuropathologist Dr. G. Zu Rhein in Madison. He was lucky enough to have Dr. J. Nachman (Univ of Chicago) and Dr. W. A. Bleyer (Univ of WA) as mentors. As a fellow, he spent time in Dr. Jonathan Cooper’s tyrosine kinase lab at the Hutch, and was a marrow transplant attending under Dr. J. Sanders and Dr. E.D. Thomas (Nobelist).
He considers himself a “medical minor-leaguer,” except in his specialty, since he was a principal investigator. He counts amongst his good friends a Director of Neurogenetics at a Big Ten medical school, a real “major-leaguer”. He is proud to be a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Clinically Retired, but the title is an honorific with no specific power, privilege or funding. It means he’s old enough.
He did care for children who had brain tumors and cancer-related neurologic problems. Some of his young hematology patients had other neurological problems like cerebrovascular disease, hemorrhage or stroke. He’s had experience with brain CT, MRI and PET scans (similar to those used in AD as “biomarkers”), has performed hundreds of spinal taps, and dealt with neuropsychological problems in a team approach. So he knows some of the jargon.
He did lots of paperwork as an institutional PI and research clinician for dozens of state-of-the-art cancer trials and some hematology trials. These included Phase 2 investigational agents and Phase 3 studies (Children’s Oncology Group). He has personally obtained research consents, even written investigational informed consents, and has actually administered investigational agents himself. His unit and team passed audits with NCI criteria. So he knows a lot of that jargon.
Of course, he knows that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, leading to misconceptions. On the other hand, clinical cancer advances have been relatively successful, so it seemed fair to him to ask if some of the same approaches could apply to clinical dementia research.
He is not an automatic cynic, skeptic, or naysayer, or trying to be snide, and would sincerely welcome substantial progress in disease-modifying therapy. However, he knows that even FDA-approved agents may be marginal and not work well for individual patients. He thinks his perspective might help the AD effort. And he’s here to share some of the jargon.
(photo: by Russ Carmack, MHS/MBCHC PHO Annual Water Battle, kids vs. staff, everyone gets soaked!)