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By Kim Kalapus Source: purplemountain.com PORTLAND, OR — Lots of people dream of curing cancer. Lia LaBrant, 17, is doing something about it. She may have found a new source for a powerful anti-cancer drug. It started as a school science project in her junior year. Taxol is a drug used to fight certain types of cancer. It comes from the Pacific yew tree. Lia tested several other plants for the substance. Fungus from one of them seemed to contain taxol.
Lia worked with Dr. Angela Hoffman at the University of Portland. She became Lia's mentor. Hoffman has been working on taxol research for about 10 years. "The research took a lot of perseverance," Lia said. She repeated steps many times. "We grew the fungus in the lab. Then we took cuttings and tested them." Success came slowly. "If the results didn't turn out the way I expected, I would just keep going and try again," Lia said. This summer, she will work to confirm her findings. If she does, more taxol might be available. More people could use the drug. It might save trees, too. Fungus can be grown much more quickly than trees. Lia's research won a first place in a national contest sponsored by the U.S. Defense Department. She presented her findings at the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium in April. "That was a little nerve-racking, because there were more experts in the audience," Lia said. "But it was fun." She said she couldn't have imagined saying that when she was a freshman. "I wasn't very outgoing then," she said. "I took speech class because I knew it wouldn't be easy!" Lia won $20,000 in scholarship money. This
month she graduates from high school. Lia hopes to become a doctor.
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Its
tea time, and we've gathered recent news and current events that
are meant to inspire and enjoy. 
"I
had an interest in cancer because my grandfather died of it,"
said Lia. A family friend also had the disease, took taxol, and
is now cancer-free. 
