LYME SCI: Remembering the gifts of Dr. Neil Spector

Dr. Neil Spector, an internationally acclaimed cancer researcher, wanted to change the world. While seeking a cure for cancer, however, he became seriously involved with a different illness, which ended up steering his life and work in a new direction. It turns out that Spector had suffered for years from unrecognized Lyme disease. Eventually, Lyme carditis led to complete heart failure.

Although Spector’s decades-long battle with Lyme disease profoundly affected his life, it failed to hinder his spirit. In 2009, he received a life-saving heart transplant which allowed him to continue his groundbreaking research until he passed away on June 14, 2020. For this, we owe Spector and his heart donor both a huge debt of gratitude.

Among his many talents, Spector led a Duke Cancer Institute team tasked with translating research discoveries into new therapies. He had a special interest in seeking to understand what role environmental factors, like toxins and infection, played in transforming healthy cells into cancers.

Prior to joining Duke Cancer Institute, Spector served as Director of Exploratory Medical Sciences—Oncology at GlaxoSmithKline. While there, he successfully developed two important cancer drugs—one for pediatric T-cell leukemia (nelarabine), the other a targeted therapy for HER2+ breast cancer (lapatinib). Spector guided both drugs through the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process.

More recently, Dr. Spector had turned his attention to finding innovative therapies for both Lyme disease and Bartonella.

The need for change
Antibiotics are currently the standard treatment for both Lyme and Bartonella. However, antibiotics don’t always work and sometimes bring serious side effects. Spector wanted to find new treatment options for patients with both conditions.

Starting in 2017, Spector and his co-principal investigator at Duke, Professor Timothy Haystead, collaborated with scientists at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Tulane Medical Center, and North Carolina State University.

In 2018, I wrote about Spector’s Lyme and Bartonella research. At that time, he said he hoped to “move from isolating targets to identifying potential drugs to testing in animal models within three years— a very aggressive timeline.”

Since then, his team has used new technology to develop drugs to target specific portions of the Borrelia and Bartonella bacteria. Essentially, they have looked for non-antibiotic therapies that will target the “off switch”—a method that has successfully found new cancer therapies.

This collaboration represents the first time the vast knowledge of cancer research has been applied to Lyme disease. Spector often pointed out that many features of cancer are also true of Lyme disease and Bartonella, which can work in the researchers’ favor.

More at this link: https://www.lymedisease.org/remembering-gifts-neil-spector/

-------------------------------------
Dear RM Agents and Readers,

Whenever I post about Dr. Spector, I tear up, everytime. Sad that such a special man with such a beautiful goal was taken from us.

Yet, I suppose I should look at the man that was given to the world Dr. Neil Spector and Thank God that we had the gift to know him personally or like myself to know him through his videos.

God Bless him and his family who I'm sure was a part of who he was
the man he was, the man he became after Lyme.

Many Blessings,
CrystalRiver