As the Interfraternity Council Dance Marathon gets underway this weekend, two researchers at the University's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center are researching to combat children's cancer.

Donations from the marathon benefit the Four Diamonds Fund, which helps support children's cancer research at Hershey. Twenty-nine percent of the fund is allocated specifically for children's cancer research.

"The contribution of the dance marathon is very important to the patients' care. If the students could see how much the families appreciate their efforts they would be amazed," said Barbara Miller, assistant professor of pediatrics and pediatric oncologist.

Kathy Hales, associate director of involvement for the medical center, said the center uses the money for research and for purchasing equipment and supplies. Grants and federal money also fund research, she said.

Miller, a childhood cancer researcher at the medical center, is researching leukemia.

Miller explained that leukemia stems from a problem in a person's bone marrow. In a healthy person, the body's bone marrow is constantly producing red and white blood cells and platelets. These cells begin as small cells that divide and mature as the bone marrow grows, Miller said, adding that no one understands how these cells mature.

But with someone affected by leukemia, the body's early white blood cells never mature. Instead, they continue to divide until they take over the bone marrow. Because the body fights infection with mature white cells, a person with leukemia can't fight off infection.

The white cells multiply so much that there is no room for red blood cells and platelets, Miller said.

"These cells are like babies. They have no ability to fight infection," she said.

Miller is studying the normal biochemical mechanism through which growth factors cause early bone marrow cells to divide and mature. She hopes to find what causes the white blood cells' abnormal mechanism.

Another childhood cancer researcher at Hershey, John Neely, associate professor of pediatrics and head of pediatric oncology, is looking into why cancerous tumors are resistant to chemotherapy, a drug treatment that kills rapidly developing cells, Miller said.

The research is important because cancer that occurs in children often reoccurs because as it becomes resistant to the therapy, she said.

By cloning genes he hopes to understand the mechanism of resistance to chemotherapy. This may lead to alternative treatments in the future, she said.