At the recent AIA National Convention in Dallas, I ran into an old classmate of mine. He was with his wife, and I had not seen them since we had attended our architecture class reunion some six years before. We hugged and began immediately catching up on our lives since our last visit. As I filled them in on the latest goings on with my daughter who is graduating from college next year, I could see that Shirley had tears forming in her eyes. She looked away and with difficulty told me that their older daughter had died just before Christmas of breast cancer, leaving two children, two and five years of age. It was a tragic story, one that we encounter much too often. Another dear friend of mine has just recently had surgery for colon cancer, and an officer within the Baylor Health Care System, with whom I work, has been diagnosed with lung cancer. In 1999, cancer remains a very real threat-our number two killer.

Major discoveries have been made in the detection and treatment of cancer. Many types are now treatable through chemotherapy and radiation. Bone marrow transplants hold the possibility of a permanent cure for those detected in time. Even with many ancillary drugs to help in the process, it is still a harrowing and horrendous treatment-not always successful-and for those not detected in time, ineffective. Death is an all too real possibility, as was the case with my classmate's daughter.

Major improvements have been made in the comfort of patients currently undergoing available procedures. Outpatient cancer centers are now attractive, light-filled spaces with landscaped gardens and infusion areas offering TVs, VCRs, and other diverting amenities. Along with sickness-reducing drugs and prostheses for an attractive appearance, not to mention the patient education programs and support groups, patients today have an altogether better forecast for their therapy and recovery. What is the future of cancer treatment? What possibilities will be open to the cancer patients of tomorrow? For the answers we must look to research-research into molecular biology and, in particular, immunology research. Research, we hope, will someday make cancer a disease of the past-much like polio, which was a major concern when many of us were children. Today it is of little consequence.

Molecular biology, which was born some 60 years ago, has grown on a parabolic curve to become a major force in medical investigation. Already, some of the most optimistic fantasies of early biologists have come about; now we stand on the threshold of an explosion of knowledge and new treatments. Scientists today have gone far beyond the finding of better treatments and are trying to decipher nature's secrets of disease. This has led to investigation into the way healthy living systems work. What is normal? How does the body protect itself against disease? How is disease detected and, once present, how is it readily fought off? What is the nature of our body's ongoing fight?

While it is for the research scientists to find the answers to these questions, it is for us the architects to provide the place where those answers will be found. As we have created locales where cancer treatment is better and more patient focused, so we can create laboratory facilities where the scientists are buoyed and inspired by their surroundings, where scientific research is facilitated, and where interaction among scientists is encouraged.

Abstract

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