Michael W. Retsky PhD

Dr. Michael Retsky, who holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago, switched careers thirty years ago and now focuses on cancer research. He works with the Boston-based Angiogenesis Foundation and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Additionally, he teaches at University College London. Retsky is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Bioequivalence and Bioavailability and is working on a Nature/Springer book on breast cancer that will be released in 2017. In addition to being one of the Colon Cancer Alliance’s founders and serving on its board of directors, he has authored more than 60 publications on both cancer and physics.

In 1994, he received a stage IIIc colon cancer diagnosis. He chose against utilizing standard maximum-tolerated chemotherapy based on his earlier study on tumor growth and treatment. Instead, he employed the common colon cancer medicine 5-fluorouracil together with a low-dose, long-term therapy that was delivered every day with a portable infusion pump. He didn’t relapse, which suggests that the therapy was effective since it was non-toxic, and the risk of relapse has long since passed.