CANCERS are complicated and one patient can have dozens of cancer genes, whose complex relationship with gene mutation and interconnections make many scientists and doctors pessimistic about conquering the disease in their lifetime or even in the lifetime of the next generation.

Qian Qijun, a medical professor at the Department of Biotherapy on Cancer at Shanghai Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, says we do not have to understand what causes cancer but only tell the difference between the cancer cells and normal cells to make immune cells to attack only the cancer cells.

His goal is to cure 60 percent of cancers in 10 years and make this therapy affordable to 60 percent of his patients.

He is also the dean of Shanghai Engineering Cell Therapy Research Center, which is based in Jiading District.

Qian went to the First Military Medical University in Guangzhou in 1982 to study medicine and he was a diligent student who spent a large amount of time in learning knowledge, thinking about medical puzzles and listening to lectures from medical experts.

After graduation, Qian became a resident doctor in the hematology department of a hospital in Lanzhou, capital of northeast China’s Gansu Province. To further pursue his dream, he chose to continue his studies to become one of the third batch of post-doctoral degree earners in China.

In 1990s, Qian became an associate medical professor.

In 1998, a Hong Kong merchant got to know Qian, who was then deputy associate fellow at the Hong Kong University’s Department of Clinical Oncology. A close relative of the merchant’s was suffering from cancer.

Doctors, including Qian, tried their best to treat the patient but still failed. The merchant was deeply moved by Qian’s persistence and donated HK$10 million (US$1.29 million) to support the founding of a genetic virus treatment laboratory at Shanghai Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital two years after his relative passed away.

Qian and his colleagues’ war against cancer started from then.

Statistics show that China’s cancer morbidity rate has increased about 50 percent in the past 20 years. In 2015 alone, China’s total cancer morbidity was 4.29 million and cancer mortality was 2.8 million, which means 12,000 cases of the disease every day on average and 7,500 deaths every day on average.

Everyone has a 22 percent of chance of getting cancer and a 13 percent of chance of dying from the disease, which means that one out of seven to eight cancer patients will die from cancer, Qian said.

Men are be most susceptible to cancers of the stomach, esophagus, liver and colon. Women are susceptible to cancers of the breast, lung, stomach, colon and esophagus.

“The higher morbidity causes more people’s concerns,” Qian said.

“Many think that pollution in the air, water and food causes cancer but then why do countries with relatively better environments such as Australia, Norway and New Zealand’s have morbidity rates that are among the world’s top 10?

“People live longer and the cells divide more, which will have larger chances to produce cancer cells. Besides, as people get older, their immune cells will become weaker in cleaning heterotypic cells,” Qian said. So just getting old causes cancer morbidity rates to rise.

In Shanghai, life expectancy is 82 for men and 86 for women, higher than the world average so cancer morbidity rates are relatively high as a result.

In 2015, two out of every 100 Shanghai residents had cancer and Shanghai had 342,000 cancer patients that year. Daily morbidity was 169 and mortality 101 on average, representing 30.6 percent of total deaths in the municipality.

Many cancer treatments have been devised, such as surgery and radioactive treatment so patients’ life expectancies have been largely extended. However, for those patients who have secondary growths, these traditional treatments are not that effective.

Immune cell medicine is fast developing, bringing new dawns in the war.

After more than 10 years of innovation, Qian’s team have brought immune cell treatment technology into clinical use and received the first approval in China to implement the technology in clinical use from authorities in December 2011.

In August 2016, the Baize Plan was activated aiming to cure 60 percent of the cancers and make 60 percent of patients able to afford the treatment.

In ancient Chinese mythology, Baize is a renowned divine beast living on Kunlun Mountains and is totally white. Baize can talk in human language and knows everything. Baize usually hides in the mountains unless saints start to govern the world when Baize will follow the saints’ invitation to offer a helping hand.

Baize is like immune cells and knows all cancer cells, heterocyst cells and aging cells in one’s body and Baize should also know how to expel and kill these problematic cells mentioned, Qian said.

A woman surnamed Chen suffered from cervical cancer and she had experienced surgery, radioactive treatment and other treatment, but these were not very effective so she received treatment with this new technology twice in 2016. She became much better afterward.

A 75-year-old, Mr Xin, had liver cancer and had undergone surgery and other treatments but his situation deteriorated so he received the new technology in May 2012 and now he’s in a stable condition.

Immune cells can be stored for future use, Qian said. Qian and his team’s research did not turn to medical volunteers but drained their own immune cells for future use.

“Chinese doctors have had this self-sacrificial spirit since Shen Nong, China’s first doctor in its legend, tried every herb on his own body in the primitive ages and Nobel Prize winner Tu Youyou did experiments on her own body causing liver intoxication,” Qian said.

Qian thought they would try the treatment on their own bodies, which would be much more convincing and they would timely adjust treatment to minimize side-effects.

About 6,000 people have contributed their immune cells to a cell treatment storage bank in Shanghai and before that he had stored and received more than 10 times the immune cells from and to his body.

He said that “storing immune cells is a backup for one’s future and those cells will be key seeds to prevent and cure cancer.”