By Monsignor Noel C. Burtenshaw

There is joy in Martin Murphy's voice when he speaks about his work. That's because his work is finding success that everyone wants. Martin is a cancer research scientist.

"People don't realize it," says this quiet man with an Irish twinkle in his laughing eyes, "but we are now defeating this disease in great strides. And that is no mean feat. Cancer is a hundred diseases with no common denomination. We have to just press on. Over 50 percent of all cancers brought to us in time are being cured. The great day is dawning. Its here."

The scientist was in Atlanta recently at a professional meeting and spoke about his research. Murphy, father of five children, is director of the Bob Hipple Laboratory for Cancer Research in Dayton, Ohio. He has devoted his entire life to the defeat of this dreaded disease.

"When you think of the work that has been accomplished in 20 years, it's just amazing. When the St. Jude Hospital in Memphis was opened in the early 50s, nothing was being done for children's leukemia. Now that form of cancer is 98 percent curable."

Martin Murphy talks most lovingly about St. Jude's. "Danny Thomas is doing wonders for children at that hospital. Now he wants to provide a foundation of one hundred million dollars to keep the successes coming. It is great."

Back in the sixties, Murphy worked as a scientist at St. Jude's. "The brilliant doctor behind St. Jude's success at that time," says Martin, "was Don Hinkle, who is now at the City of Hope in California. He insisted on taking only the difficult cases into St. Jude's. When others said it's no use, we can't help, Don Hinkle said, lets try. Danny Thomas was always out in front getting the money; Hinkle ran the hospital. What a team."

Dr. Martin Murphy is quite a show in his own right. He has studied the disease on many continents, including a two-year stint in Australia. The young scientist is constantly reading the results of his work to conferences around the globe. He translates what he does into the language of the layman.

"We take a cancer from a patient into our lab and allow it to grow and clone itself as if it were still in the human frame. We then treat that cancer with the many known and new drugs that are constantly being developed. If one or more works, then we can treat the patient with that drug. What a wonderful moment when it works. Of course, this disease is such a monster. Often none of the drugs works and we are back to square one with that cancer. But the work goes on."

You ask this young doctor about smoking and the "big C." "Avoid it, of course," he insists. "Lung cancer, especially, is affected by smoking. But remember the blood is constantly manufacturing tiny cells -- millions of them. One malfunction and you have a cancer. We don't know why it happens. And it's a miracle that it doesn't happen more often. It's a miracle that it doesn't happen to all of us."

It happened to Martin Murphy just about a year ago. This young, brilliant cancer research scientist discovered a malignancy in his intestines. "Hopefully, I am one of the cures," he says with a smile. "I will be going back for my first check-up soon. Right now I'm in that gray area of waiting. It is in the hands of the Lord."

Martin Murphy is hoping and praying for the best, but he is not just waiting around. He is a man in a hurry. He was last seen rushing back to his staff and his laboratory in Dayton to look at the new cases presented in his absence and the new healing discoveries arising to challenge them.

Cancer, as far as scientist Martin Murphy is concerned, is on the run.