A Bermudian doctor in training believes that the Bermuda College motto 'magna mirabilia portendi' – 'great and wonderful things are about to happen' – can easily be applied to the future of cancer treatment.

Dr. Sheldon Holder is this year's Bermuda College Corange Science Week speaker.

Corange Science Week is an annual event at the Bermuda College designed to entice local students into science careers.

Dr. Holder will be speaking about the future of cancer treatment and research on Thursday evening at the Bermuda College.

"I will be talking about all the new kinds of cancer therapies that people have started working on," said Dr. Holder. "I will be talking about how new treatments are different from old cancer therapies and how they are much better now.

"In the future we will have much smarter drugs that will kill cancer cells and spare normal cells. There will be more effective treatments with longer remission times and less side effects.

"Hopefully, the patients will die of something else other than cancer."

Dr. Holder is currently in his second year of a three year internal medicine programme at Milton S. Hershey Pennsylvania State Medical Centre.

He did groundbreaking cancer research for his doctoral dissertation at Loma Linda University in California.

"My research was on an enzyme called PIN-1.

"This enzyme is implicated in the development of some human cancers particularly prostate cancer and T&B cell lymphomas and leukaemia.

"In my research I am trying to develop an inhibitor for the enzyme which would serve two purposes. The first purpose would be as a building block for a new drugs to treat these cancers.

"The second purpose would be to be used as a tool in the lab by physicians and scientists to better understand how PIN-1 is involved in the development of cancer."

Dr. Holder completed his dissertation in 2005, and published his research in 2007.

His first article was published in the January 2007 issue of the medical journal 'Molecular Cancer Therapeutics'.

"That was very well received," said Dr. Holder. "And it was on the cover. I was very happy about that."

His second article was published in a journal called 'Bioorganic and Medical Chemistry'.

He is currently applying to haematology and oncology programmes.

"I hope to continue with my research soon, but at the moment my training doesn't allow time for research," Dr. Holder said.

He wants to go on to become both a practicing physician and a researcher.

"That is why oncology is appealing to me," he said. "It is a field where you are expected to both see patients and do research at the same time. I am in the process of applying for fellowship programmes."

While in Bermuda part of his purpose is to encourage other Bermudian students to consider careers in science.

He was scheduled to talk with students at several primary and secondary schools.

As part of Corange Science Week there is also a master science class with Dr. Holder for Bermuda College and some secondary school students.

"I have been asked to show the students some new and innovative things being done in science and medicine," he said.

Dr. Holder is a graduate of the Bermuda Institute.

"The Bermuda Institute has produced quite a few physicians," said Dr. Holder. "I can't think of anything that they did in particular to cause this, but in general it was an environment that encouraged its students to go on to college and graduate education.

"There were people ahead of me at school who wanted to be physicians so that kept the interest up for me."

He said it is important to know other people who have taken the path that you want to follow.

"People tell you that you can do whatever you want and achieve whatever career you want, but it still seems more obtainable when you see someone you know doing it."

He said he has had a lot of support along the way from other students, advisors and teachers in high school.

"There were also some physicians here in Bermuda that encouraged me," he said.

He said there wasn't any one thing that made him want to become a doctor, but as a child he loved dissecting his toys.

"I was always trying to figure out how my toys worked and taking them apart," he said. "In school I became interested in biology, and I wanted to know more and more about how the body worked."

And he said he has never had cause to regret his choice to become a doctor.

"There have been several times in medical school when I second guessed my decision to do medicine," he said, "but those times were fewer than the times when I said 'I have picked the right thing'."

Dr. Holder is married to Kelly Holder, a clinical psychologist. They have a 20-month-old daughter, Darby.

"I have to make time to see my daughter," he said. "And time is in short supply when you are a doctor."

Dr. Holder will give his talk 'A PIN-1 Kinase Inhibitor: Forging a New Weapon in the War on Cancer' at a public forum on Thursday night at 6.30 p.m. in the North Hall at the Bermuda College in room G301.