Appendix C 
Non-Technical Abstract 
NON-TECHNICAL ABSTRACT : 
Autologous bone marrow transplantation is a technique which 
makes safe the very high doses of chemotherapy and radiation which 
are required to eradicate some populations of leukemia cells. The 
marrow is removed from the hip bones of the patient at the time of 
remission induced by conventional dose chemotherapy, stored and re- 
infused into the patient after intensive therapy in order to 
restore marrow function. Peripheral blood will also be used for the 
restoration of hematopoietic function following transplantation. 
Although the responses seen of metablatic and advanced ovarian 
cancer in poor prognosis patients is often dramatic following the 
intensive therapy used in the bone marrow transplantation, patients 
who respond do not exhibit increased survival. This indicates that 
additional therapy following recovery from the transplant might be 
beneficial. In order to make possible the delivery of relatively 
intensive doses of Taxol following autologous transplant, we will 
introduce the MDR-1 cDNA into the stem cells of patients with 
ovarian cancer before storage for transplant. To accomplish this, 
a portion of the bone marrow and peripheral blood cells stored from 
patients will be incubated with the marking vector. This vector 
will introduce a MDR-1 cDNA into these neoplastic cells. If the 
neoplastic cells contain the marker, then they will exhibit 
increased levels of resistance to the unmodified cells. The 
establishment of this marker in the cells will promote their growth 
over unmodified cells of conventional dose chemotherapy if given 
following the autograft. If this is the case, we will be in a 
position to test high dose Taxol delivered after autologous 
transplant in ovarian cancer and alter the unfavorable natural 
history of this disease. The results of this study will be used to 
improve the therapy given to patients with ovarian cancer. It is 
not designed to benefit the patients themselves. 
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Recombinant DNA Research, Volume 17 
