BETHESDA, Md. -- In the search for cures for childhood cancers, one boy's battle with the disease could help other children.

Killian Owen was 5 years old when he was diagnosed with leukemia. Despite the valiant efforts of his parents and doctors to help him beat the disease, he died two years ago. But his legacy may spare other children a similar fate.

"He had a tremendous sense of humor," said Grainne Owen, Killian's mother. "He just enjoyed every single moment that he had, even before he was sick."

Grainne says Killian was special, and so do the doctors at the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.

"He was a pioneer," said Dr. Alan Wayne.

Killian died from acute lymphocytic leukemia, the most common form of childhood leukemia. After standard treatments failed, Killian's parents fought to get him into a clinical trial at the National Cancer Institute, where doctors were working on a new drug called BL-22, which had been tested in adults but never in children.

Killian's family and doctors had to get special permission from the Food and Drug Administration to try the drug on Killian.

"He was the first child to be treated with the new agent, developed here at the NCI, and we've learned a lot from him," Wayne said.

BL-22 didn't save Killian, but doctors at the NCI saved millions of his cells, and what they've learned from those cells helped shape the next studies of BL-22 and the development of new drugs.

"There's another new trial that's about to open up with a related drug called LMB-2 that also -- we know from testing Killian's cells in the laboratory -- is about 10 times more effective against his cells in the test tube than the BL-22, so he lives on through this work without question," Wayne said.

While doctors continue to make progress in the lab, Killian's family is helping to fund some of the research.

"I don't want anybody else to sit there and listen to the doctor say, 'There isn't anything we can do for your child. You have to go home and watch them die,'" Grainne said. "I mean that. You cannot imagine how that makes you feel, and the doctors hate to do it."

Last year, Killian's parents and his three brothers founded the charity Coaches Curing Kids' Cancer. Instead of raising money to buy a coach a gift at the end of the season, a team donates money to childhood cancer research in the coach's honor. Killian's mother believes he would have been proud.

"I think he would have loved the idea that his cells are now helping other children," Grainne said.

More Information:

• Coaches Curing Kids' Cancer