Who: Ron Louie was a pediatric hematologist-oncologist before becoming the primary caregiver for his wife, who had Early Onset Alzheimer’s Dementia (AD). During his clinical career, he took care of patients with brain or neurologic disorders related to his specialty.
Along with his conventional training, he did a 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 Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and was a marrow transplant attending under Dr. J. Sanders and Dr. E.D. Thomas (Nobelist).
He was an institutional principal investigator for clinical research for the Children’s Oncology Group (NCI Phase II & III), in hematology and for institutional psychosocial studies.. He counts amongst his good friends a Director of Neurogenetics at a Big Ten medical school. He is proud to be a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, 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. 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 which is the BTS reality of being an institutional PI for dozens of state-of-the-art cancer trials and other trials. He has personally obtained research consents, research assents (don’t ask), 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 with clinically meaningful and substantial and discernible bedside results. 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!)