For Release: Sept. 24, 1999

Media Advisory: 99-249

Major Breakthrough in Treating Children with Brain Cancer:
NASA Spin-off Technology Makes it Happen

For the past 10 years, a young Wisconsin woman has endured a string of surgeries for aggressive, recurring brain cancer. Now, at age 20, she has recovered following a revolutionary surgery, with no signs of a new tumor. A young man also had the same surgery and continues recovering with no sign of a returning tumor.

Both were treated at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee by surgeons who are using tiny pinhead-size Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) to activate light sensitive, tumor-treating drugs.

The LEDs were developed for NASA Space Shuttle plant growth experiments by Quantum Devices, Inc. of Barneveld, Wis. Now they are used to save lives on Earth.

The Technology Transfer Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., facilitates the process of developing the LED technology for continuing cancer research.

You can interview the doctor who leads the team in this exciting use of a space technology spin-off. B-roll will be available.

Visit the Marshall News Center for news media at:

/centers/msfc/NEWSROOM/