Mercy sister’s pioneering cancer research made headlines in ’60s, ’70s By Sue Corbran
Modest beginnings Sister Eymard added research to her biology curriculum in 1961-62. She taught junior biology majors the basics of biological research, and then mentored seniors as they conducted their own experiments. The program started small, very small. After getting the OK from President Sister Loretta McHale, Sister Eymard had to fnd space and equipment. “We started from the subbasement of Egan to the 4th foor ‘cat walk,’ but we could not fnd any available space,” Sister Eymard later wrote. “Sister Loretta then told me I could use one free room on Egan 3rd until a foor could be put on the left side of the cat walk.” Sister Eymard sold a secondhand typewriter she’d been given and used the $50 to pay for that fooring and for shelving to hold her mouse cages. The cancer research project would grow into other makeshift locations in Old Main. Small annual grants from the National Science Foundation and the American Cancer Society through the 1960s helped purchase needed equipment and paid stipends to the students carrying out the experiments. But when Zurn Hall of Science and Fine Arts opened in 1968, Sister Eymard fnally got the facility she needed, designed and equipped to carry on her research.
When she decided to bring cancer research to Mercyhurst, even Sister Eymard Poydock probably had no idea just how far her team would go. She started in 1961 in a makeshift laboratory under the eaves of Egan Hall and with a shoestring budget. But over nearly three decades, Sister Eymard would recruit dozens of Mercyhurst students – and adult community volunteers – into her study. At its peak in the mid-1970s, Sister’s team developed a cancer-fghting compound that attracted nationwide attention. The researchers dubbed their combination of vitamins and enzymes “Mercytamin” in tribute to the Sisters of Mercy. Though the product never made it to market, for a time it seemed to hold great promise for curing some cancers. Writing for Prevention magazine in 1982, alumnus Randy Byrd ’74 said, “It appeared that Sister Eymard had found a cancer-inhibiting agent that not only stops many kinds of cancer, but does so with absolutely no side efects in healthy tissue.” Today, websites that promote alternative treatments for cancer still suggest patients give the treatment a try, one of them calling it a “nun’s divine cancer cure.”
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