In a research career that has spanned 3 decades, John L. Marshall, MD, has participated in all phases of clinical trials. He was at the forefront of research into immunotherapy and targeted therapy for gastrointestinal (GI) cancers and helped to establish standards of care for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC). He explored vaccines for CRC in the late 1990s.
But his focus sharpened in 2006 after his wife, Liza Marshall, was diagnosed with stage IIIA near-inflammatory triple-negative breast cancer. She’s healthy today, but he was frustrated by the unanswered questions in cancer care. “We should be in more of a hurry to cure cancer,” Marshall said in Off Our Chests: A Candid Tour Through the World of Cancer, a book he coauthored with his wife about her cancer journey.“I could not understand why there was no sense of panic among the research and advocacy communities.”