David J Kroll

David J Kroll, PhD, is a cancer pharmacologist at Research Triangle Institute (RTI), Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Pharmacotherapy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds the title of President’s Teaching Scholar of the University of Colorado, where he was a faculty member in their School of Pharmacy from 1992 to 2001. David earned his PhD in Pharmacology and Therapeutics from the University of Florida (1989) and holds a BS in Toxicology from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (1985), the first US college of pharmacy.

Given his primary interest in antitumour drugs derived from natural sources, David was approached by Colorado pharmacy students in 1995 to develop didactic coursework on the herbal medicines and dietary supplements they encountered in community practice. He was fortunate to draw on the tutelage of renowned Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science pharma-cognosy professor, Ara DerMarderosian, for the postgraduate self-education required to establish his authority in the field.

When David Kroll was promoted with tenure to Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Colorado in 1999, his referees expressed caution that his herbal medicine educational interests would not interfere with his research programme on the actions of DNA topoisomerase II-targeted anticancer drugs. Today, all of David Kroll’s research funding from the US National Cancer Institute is directed towards the study of anticancer herbal medicines, other plant-derived compounds, and the risks of dietary supplement interactions with cancer chemotherapy, including those chemotherapeutics that act on DNA topoisomerase II. David Kroll resides in Durham, NC, USA, with his wife, Heather S Shaw, MD, a medical oncologist and co-director of the Integrative Oncology programme at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center. Their proudest and most productive scientific collaboration to date has been the birth of their now-four-year-old daughter, Phoebe Talbot Kroll.

DK: Those individuals who aim to preserve the chasm between alternative and conventional medicine, many of whom do so without proper academic qualifications. I have worked with some great researchers in my life and interacted with Nobel prize winners, but some of the most arrogant and exclusionary personalities I have met have been involved in integrative and alternative medicine. Edzard Ernst hit the nail on the head in these pages in the June 2006 issue of FACT with his article on self-serving CAM pseudoexperts (FACT 2006; 11: 85–6). The acronym, CAM, itself even fosters an ‘us-versus-them’ adversarial mentality; I prefer ‘integrative medicine’ because this term implies the integration of alternative practices that have met the evidenced-based standards of medicine. One last point about dangers to CAM, particularly in the USA, is that it has become exclusionary among patients as well. Because few US health insurers will reimburse for visits to massage therapists or for mindfulness-based stress reduction programmes, costs come out of the pockets of patients. Those able to pay will pay, and I fear that integrative medicine will only be available to those with adequate financial means, thereby becoming the medicine of the ‘rich and famous’.

DK: Homoeopathy – I know, not a popular stance in Great Britain and the rest of Europe. I am perfectly open to the possibility that some therapies may work without us knowing their precise mechanism (such as X-rays earlier last century). However, I have yet to see convincing evidence or have a positive personal experience with this class of so-called remedies.

DK: My mother-in-law was pleasantly surprised when she first learned that I was using my training to study alternative medicines. However, when I offered to show her my curriculum vitae, she said that all she really cared about was that I take good care of her daughter.

DK: I never knew how emotionally isolating a career in laboratory research would be and how little weight being a good educator carries in American academic medical centres. I would have preferred a career with greater interpersonal contact, but still in the biomedical sciences, perhaps as a physician or as a science educator at a small but strong liberal arts college. I am also an amateur guitarist and bassist and cut two original CDs with three physicians at the University of Colorado in a band called Dogs in the Yard – part of me would love to pack up the family in a road vehicle and do a solo acoustic tour of the USA, Europe and Australia.

DK: I try not to have regrets but I do sometimes wish I had gone to medical school. My Mom, then a private practice nurse, had me talk to a physician friend when I was a senior in university. The doc looked down his nose at me and said, ‘Why do you want to spend the rest of your life in a laboratory? I am a doctor and a highly-respected member of my community.’ So, I immediately discarded my medical school applications and applied instead to six PhD programmes. Umm, and maybe I also regret not being a touring musician when I was young enough to do so.

DK: First and foremost, I would like to be remembered as a loving father, husband, brother, and son. ‘Daddy’ is my most important title. My family is all over the USA but they keep me grounded and protect me from getting a fat head. Professionally, I want to be remembered as a rigorous scientist who had a mind open enough to give alternative therapies a fair shot at evaluation and who truly helped integrate non-prescription natural products into preventive medicine.

DK: Unquestionably, life’s most important lesson has been to treat everyone with respect regardless of their lot in life. I’ve also come to realise that everyone is an expert in something such that you can learn important things from every single person you meet. My family came over from Europe in the latter half of the 1800s, passed through Ellis Island (New York City) and settled immediately less than twenty kilometres away, working in various factories for four generations before mine came along. My late father was literally a blue-collared worker and gave me opportunities he never could have had. So, I have an immense degree of respect for any determined person with a good work ethic because they may have not had the opportunities given to me.

DK: ‘Be good or be gone’ (taken from McSorley’s Old Ale House, New York City).

DK: Lie? I never lie.

DK: Vintage port, wines of all sorts, and well-crafted ales.

DK: Everyone who comes through our laboratories gets a copy of my favourite book, Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire. We lab folks who work on drugs from plants need to have a better relationship with nature and the plants themselves. Pollan discusses society’s relationship with four remarkably important plants: apple trees, tulips, potatoes and cannabis. He challenges us to think about whether we have manipulated plants or plants have manipulated us into their propagation. Michael is one of the most thoughtful and engaging science writers of my generation. Pollan’s more recent book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is also destined to be a classic.

DK: Beef, lamb and shellfish. I don’t yet have the energy or discipline to become vegetarian, so my favourite food is some sort of elegant beef dish, Chateaubriand or a filet mignon with a Spanish Calabrese sauce. One of my trainees, now a surgeon, is from a prominent sheep ranching family in north-western Colorado and they cultivated my love of lamb, much to the dismay of my wife and daughter. However, we all agree on any fresh shellfish, raw or steamed, and any crustacean.

DK: Aspen, Colorado. I met my wife there one summer at a cancer research conference that the University of Colorado maintains in the mountain town. Contrary to the perception that it is merely a Hollywood playground, Aspen is rich in natural, cultural and culinary resources, and is priced reasonably during the summer, my secret favourite time to be in Colorado. Visiting Aspen renews my spiritual and intellectual being.

DK: Huh? Who said people like me? Anyone who does like me would probably say that I think of others more than I think of myself, especially my trainees. I’m also really interested in what other people have to say, rather than spouting off about my own interests, and struggle to bring consensus among those with polaris-ing viewpoints. I also just love meeting other people and learning their life stories.

DK: Passing up the opportunity to spend time with 1988 Nobel laureate, the late Gertrude (Trudy) Elion, at a cancer chemotherapy Gordon Research Conference. I had been hoping to network with someone there while looking for a postdoc in North Carolina. I only saw one person on the meeting attendee list from the state, an older lady who spent the free afternoons during the conference knitting in the courtyard while I played tennis and softball. I thought that such an elderly woman would be disconnected from hard-core science and of little help in connecting me to a job in North Carolina. Three months later, I saw her on television describing why she won the Nobel prize for her discoveries (with Gerald Hitchings) of anti-metabolite chemotherapy before the structure of DNA was known, as well as azathioprine and allopurinol. I could have spent every afternoon during the conference week picking her brain and working on a career plan to get into the then-Wellcome Institute. That defining experience taught me (1) to become a better student of science and medical history and (2) to never dismiss anyone intellectually because of their age or outward appearance.

DK: I would be among the first evicted. I would be trying to befriend everyone and forget about my own survival.