Two from university represent challenges of colon-cancer battleground

Dr. Marc S. Maynor is a promising young researcher in the University of South Carolina’s department of chemistry and biochemistry who has studied anti-cancer drugs.

Just a few blocks away, Dr. James Carson, a researcher in the Arnold School of Public Health and with the university’s Center for Colon Cancer Research, is studying cachexia, a complex syndrome causing weakness and loss of weight, muscle and fat among cancer patients. Cachexia also is responsible for as many as 30 percent of all deaths from colon cancer.

They are facing the challenges of colon cancer on two different battlegrounds: Maynor is fighting the disease; Carson is studying some of its most complex problems.

A graduate of Denmark-Olar High School, Maynor earned a bachelor’s degree from Claflin University, a master’s degree from the University of Kentucky and a doctoral degree last August from the University of South Carolina. During his impressive rise up the academic ladder, Mayor received startling news in 2006: He had colon cancer.

Although he had a family history of colon cancer, the diagnosis shocked Maynor, a post-doctoral fellow who is working on two projects that could have implications for the pharmaceutical industry.

“My mother, my grandmother and an uncle have had colon cancer,” he said. “But they had it in their 50s and 60s. I was only in my 20s. I was very much surprised.”

He had surgery after the diagnosis and is undergoing chemotherapy. Maynor’s fight has centered on the uncertainty of his future, fatigue and balancing chemo treatments with his work as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of university researcher Dr. Sheryl Wiskur.

“Right now, it’s wait and see,” he said.

But Maynor is positive, choosing to focus on the joys of family life with his wife and 2-year-old son Marc and the success that his mother has had in fighting colon cancer that was diagnosed five years ago.

Although he hasn’t had cachexia, Maynor said he knows its dangers.

“It’s a difficult part of battling colon cancer,” he said.

Carson, whose research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, said cachexia baffles scientists, doctors and other healthcare professionals working with cancer patients.

“The cause of cachexia is elusive,” he said. “Many patients who suffer from cachexia appear to be getting enough nutrients. Yet, there is something about the cancer process that is causing a breakdown of their muscle and fat stores. They lose weight and muscle mass, and, as a result, they become fatigued, their quality of life is altered, and critical metabolic muscle tissue is lost.”

In some cases, the condition renders the patient too weak to undergo the cancer treatments they need, Carson said.

Carson is examining how inflammation related to the cancer causes muscle to waste away. Besides providing a better understanding of the cachexia process, Carson and the scientists in his lab are examining hormonal and nutritional interventions that may counteract cachexia.

“Cachexia leads to increased patient death and sickness in cancer patients,” Carson said.

Maynor knows the challenges of colon cancer as a patient and a scientist.

"I’m not a typical patient,” he said.

He knows that scientific advances in the battle against colon cancer are being made, even in labs near his own.

“We already know much more about colon cancer than we did even five or 10 years ago,” he said. “Research is progress and hope.”