Putting Kakaako On The Map
Not only has the work of Dr. Michele Carbone at the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii given the UH facility added esteem, he also brings in $9.8 million a year in grants to pursue his groundbreaking investigations
By Chad Pata
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Dr. Carbone with research
assistants Haining Yang and
Antonio Pannuti
the hundreds of millions.
These breakthroughs led Carbone to specialize in mesothelioma research, which he then pursued at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago.
As his research grew, so did his team, until in 1997 he met Dr. Izzetin Baris, who discovered an epidemic of mesothelioma in a small village in Turkey named Cappadocia almost 20 years prior.
Baris had discovered a 50 percent mortality rate among the residents of this rural village, who live in homes constructed out of erionite, a soft stone formed from old lava flows.
The stone, it turned out, is extremely fibrous, much like that of asbestos. The explanation that erionite exposure equals cancer was tabled by Carbone once he got to the village and began researching the people.
What he found was that some homes had near 100 percent mortality rates, while their neighbors’ hovered near zero despite living in identical homes made of the same material. This led to a net 50 percent incidents of mesothelioma, but did not clearly represent what was going on in the community. Carbone concluded it was a genetic predisposition that was truly killing the people of Cappadocia.
“This disease is a genetic disease, it was not just that these people were exposed to these fibers,” says Carbone, who still flies back to do research in Turkey, though now it takes two days longer for the round trip. “These people had an unprecedented susceptibility, so you can pass it from mother to kid. This was the first proof of genetic susceptibility to mineral fiber carcinogenesis.
“This is completely different from what we thought; you think asbestos workers who work in the shipyards here in Hawaii. The incidence of mesothelioma among them is about 5 percent for those who have worked there for over 10 years. But what of the other 95 percent? That is what we have been studying. What makes them more susceptible to something we are all exposed to? Is it bad luck or something else?”
Armed with this information, Carbone and Baris approached the Turkish minister of health with a proposition to have the entire village moved and a new village built for them made out of bricks and cement.
“It was a long-shot, but at the same time if you do not try something you never get anything done,” says Carbone.
Sure enough, the government agreed, thereby commuting a death sentence for the people of Cappadocia and making a hero out of Carbone.
“They said they were going to name a street after me, but I have not seen it to know if it is true,” says Carbone.
So how does a man who has done so much in the world of medicine come to find himself in the Islands?
“By absolute chance, as with everything in life,” says Carbone, who had a colleague in San Francisco suggest he apply for the position. “I thought I would have always like to come here, but those thoughts that you have and do not act upon. I always dreamed of moving here, but never did anything about it.”
Coming to Hawaii is almost like a home-coming for Carbone, who was raised in Southern Italy. Its bright sandy beaches, blue waters and temperate climate are very much like Hawaii’s.
Dr. Carbone’s research led the Turkish
government to move an entire village
“I grew up hearing the waves hitting the beach, and now I go to bed with the same sound, rather than traffic,” says Carbone, although his 10-year-old daughter Liliana is having a little trouble adjusting. “My daughter, she grew up hearing the traffic, and she is not used to all these waves and crying birds.”
Leaving Italy was tough for him, but he knew that to have his greatest success he needed to leave his homeland.
He is a seventh-generation physician, and in a country known for its nepotism he wanted to make a name for himself on his own. Also, as a researcher, he wanted the freedom of controlling his own grants. In Italy, all government grants belong to the institution where the researcher is working. In America, the grant belongs to the researcher and travels with him.
By moving to the Burns School, Carbone brought $9.8 million a year in grants to the school. In addition to this, the government also provides the institution with an additional 58 percent of the grants in matching funds to provide the infrastructure for the scientists.
While this has created a nice boost for the program, grant monies in recent years have been drying up. Two wars and mounting debt have cut the amount of grants awarded by the U.S. government from 30 percent six years ago to 10 percent today.
“A lot of people have dropped out of research because there is just not enough money,” says Carbone, who has eight people working under him here. “Research is consolidating into big institutions that have a lot of endowment from philanthropy that allows them to survive in times of economic difficulty like this one.”
This is the one area Carbone sees the Cancer Center is lacking: private investment and philanthropy. In order for the center and the Burns School of Medicine to survive, he would like to see the local community come out to support it more.
“If you look around here, some of the richest people in the world live here, but maybe they think of this just as a vacation place,” says Carbone. “We need to do some work to let them know that great science and great work are being done here.
“The support of the community translates in many things, in local kids staying here rather than going to Mainland for getting their Ph.D. and M.D. degrees, and in increased philanthropy to support the cancer center. We cannot effectively function as a positive messenger for Hawaii. I mean to spread the message that Hawaii is proud to be at the forefront of medical research, unless we have the support of the community.
“I think it will help Hawaii if people on Mainland do not think of Hawaii only as a vacation place, but also as a place where normal people live normal lives and have normal jobs, for example, medical research.”
Now those are the kind of developments in Kakaako upon which everyone can agree.
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