From PEOPLE Magazine Click to enlarge
Sharon Pratt was at the end of her rope. In December 1987 doctors told the then-28-year-old mother of two that she had at most three months to live. Surgery had failed to stop the spread of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, from her back to her lymph nodes and a lung. A month later, sitting with her family in the office of New York University Medical Center dermatologist Jean-Claude Bystryn—the man she regarded as her last hope—she was told that her weakened immune system made her a borderline candidate for his experimental melanoma vaccine. "Don't tell me you're not going to take me!" cried Pratt, gesturing to her two small children. "Look at these babies!"

"Of course we will take you," was Bystryn's gentle reply. "And we will do everything we can do."

Today, at 40, Pratt, who continues to get shots of the vaccine every six months, is apparently cancer-free. And after 12 years of research on more than 600 other melanoma patients, Bystryn is one clinical trial away from seeking government approval for the vaccine that may have saved her life. For now, Bystryn's work is confined to stemming the spread of melanoma in patients who already have it. But he envisions a day when vaccines will avert melanoma and other malignancies. "In the long run," he says, "I think cancer is a preventable disease."

Initial trials showed that Bystryn's vaccine improved the survival rate of melanoma patients by 50 percent over conventional treatments used on patients at other institutions. Now he needs several million dollars per year to conduct a final trial involving up to four years of tests on 600 to 800 new patients in U.S. clinics. Although he stands to gain financially by the vaccine's approval (along with NYU and drug companies), Bystryn is not alone in eagerly awaiting the results. Says Dr. David Leffell, a professor of dermatology at the Yale School of Medicine: "This is an important step toward developing a true vaccine."

Last year, 41,600 Americans were diagnosed with melanoma and 7,300 died from it. Linked to excessive sun exposure—though there are thought to be other unknown causes—it usually appears as a mole with irregular shape and coloring. If not removed, it can spread to other organs. "Melanoma is increasing more rapidly than any other cancer," says Mitzi Moulds, executive director of the Skin Cancer Foundation, which promotes high-protection sunscreen and annual checkups. "Once it begins to metastasize, the prognosis is not so good."

Bystryn believes that injecting patients with extracts from melanoma cells stimulates the production of immune cells that can stop the spread of existing tumors. "We don't have a cure," he is quick to point out, "but something we believe delays the progression and can improve the odds of people who have the disease."

Bystryn is no stranger to long odds. Born to Jewish parents in Paris in 1938, he and his older sister were sheltered by nuns during the Nazi occupation while their late father, Iser, an engineer, and mother, Sara, now 92, escaped to the countryside. Reunited after the war, the family moved to New York City in 1949. A top student, Bystryn won a full scholarship to the University of Chicago in 1954. There he studied biochemistry before going on for a medical degree from NYU in 1962.

After completing his dermatology residency, Bystryn in 1970 joined the medical research team at NYU, where his antibody work on mice led to the development of the melanoma vaccine. Now his pioneering efforts have been taken up by scientists around the country.

Outside the lab, the serious researcher "can be a real goofball," says his daughter Anne, 20, a Brown University history major. In the six-room Manhattan apartment he shares with wife Marcia, 51, an environmental officer with the state, and son Alex, 13, Bystryn can often be found watching Comedy Central or reading about World War I. Weekends are spent at the family's beach house near Westhampton, N.Y., where Bystryn has developed a green thumb. "He's so impressed with what can happen when you garden," Marcia says.

Others are more impressed by his research. "Now there is hope," says New Jersey nurse Cathy O'Neill, 62, whose husband, Bob, 55, an iron worker, has been treated by Bystryn. "That 'h' word is really important."

Anne-Marie O'Neill
Debbie Seaman in New York City