Memphis

When you take a trip inside the research lab at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, you enter a place where hope lives to find a cure.

St. Jude's researchers spend countless hours on experiments to pinpoint how tumors develop and how they can somehow be demolished. The researchers are concentrating on t-cells in the body to see how they could play a roll in preventing cancer from spreading.

"If we can manipulate the t-cells without actually attacking the tumor as if it were actually a virus or a bacteria that would be a great treatment without the radiation and the chemotherapy because you would have a lot of fewer side effects," said Assistant Professor, Maureen McGargill.

The lab uses data, scopes, and high-tech laser lights to watch cancer cells and track how they develop.

In 1962, the survival rate for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) the most common form of childhood cancer was 4%.

But thanks to the hard work of dedicated researchers who worked tirelessly in this lab, the survival rate is now 94%.

"To see the patients every day and to see the struggles they're going through, really puts into perspective the struggles that we face in the lab and gives us that little motivation to keep going," explained McGargill.

It's a long road of ups and downs for the scientists, but they say it's a road they don't mind traveling each day. So one day, children won't have to live with or die from cancer.

"Every day our motivation is that we're going to help find treatments so someday we can cure these diseases. And every day we dream, oh we're one step closer to a cure now," said McGargill.

The Dream Home will be given away live on Eyewitness News June 10. Tickets for the dream home are $100.

You can get your ticket at the Nitro, Eleanor, and Point Pleasant branches of Peoples Federal Credit Union, Burdette Camping Center, or any participating Good Neighbor Pharmacy.

They're also available online at www.dreamhome.org or at 1-800-592-1582.

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