For researcher, fight against cancer is personal
Facing the disease himself and in his brothers led Curtis Thorne to search for a cure.
Though cancer has had a profound and prominent role in his life, Curtis Thorne, PhD, an associate professor in the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and a member of the U of A Cancer Center, initially resisted being a cancer researcher.
Photo by Noelle Haro-Gomez, U of A Health Sciences Office of Communications
For years, cancer called Curtis Thorne, PhD, but he didn’t answer.
Not when his oldest brother, who was medically fragile, was diagnosed with a spinal cord tumor.
All three Thorne boys – Mitchell (left), Travis (middle) and Curtis (right) – fought cancer.
Photo courtesy of Curtis Thorne
Not when his middle brother died of acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Not even when he didn’t get into his choice of graduate schools to study botany, instead landing a job in a breast cancer lab.
But in the middle of his postdoctoral fellowship, Thorne – the father of a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old at the time – was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
He finally answered the call.
“I had a brother who died, another brother who was diagnosed with cancer, cancer had just been a part of my life, I thought I shouldn’t ignore this weird pull,” said Thorne, an associate professor in the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and a member of the U of A Cancer Center. “It’s just random luck. I don’t know that I’d call it bad luck. I feel like the best thing that happened to me was getting cancer.”
Read more on the University of Arizona Health Sciences website