By Don C. Reed
Imagine a medical nightmare: going to the restroom and urinating blood.
If this ever happens to you, contact your doctor immediately. Even a small amount of blood (hematuria) can mean bladder cancer: a rapid-spreading and potentially fatal disease. (1)
Current treatment is to remove and replace the bladder, either by a bag (stoma) outside the body, which must be emptied every few hours, or by constructing a new bladder (“neobladder”), using materials from the wall of the intestine. (2)
Even when the replacement operation has been done, and much cancer is removed, the smallest amount (a single cell!) may regrow, and take over the bladder again. Frequent (and expensive) monitoring must be done to see if the cancer has returned, or spread.
Fortunately, experts are pitting their strength against this vile malignancy: scientists who have received support from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) include: Philip Beachy, Ph.D., Kyle Loh, Ph.D., Lay Teng Ang, Ph.D., and Joe Liao M.D.,Ph.D.
I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Ley Teng Ang, Assistant Professor of Urology at Stanford University. She is pioneering an approach that may one day offer a definitive cure for bladder cancer, and for which she recently received a grant from the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network.
Dr. Ang said, “I am thrilled to receive the BCAN Career Development Award. I hope to use these cells to restore healthy bladder tissue in cancer patients, moving us closer to a cure.” (3)
With Dr. Ang, the struggle is deeply personal.
“After losing my mother to bladder cancer two years ago, I am committed to focusing my research on urological diseases.” (personal communication)
She believes it may be possible to grow a healthy new lining of the bladder. Her proposed approach uses a simple catheter procedure, a drug to remove the cancerous lining. Healthy stem cells would then be delivered to regenerate a new bladder lining — cancer-free.
If it was you or a family member who had blood in the urine, would you not want Dr. Ang to be successful?
Unfortunately, the Trump Administration is cutting the funds for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by an estimated $4 billion.
Lawsuits have begun… (4)
“…attorneys general of Massachusetts and 21 other states sued. They argued that the Trump administration’s plan to slash $4 billion in overhead costs — known as “indirect costs” — violated a 79-year-old law that governs how administrative agencies establish and administer regulations.” (5)
A temporary restraining order has been issued, and a hearing set for February 21.
2. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/neobladder-reconstruction/about/pac-20385066
3. https://bcan.org/bcan-announces-awardees-of-its-2024-bladder-cancer-career-development-award/
4. https://coag.gov/app/uploads/2025/02/ECF-001-Complaint-Mass.-v.-NIH-1.pdf
5. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/politics/nih-trump-lawsuit-medical-research.html