Like many UCLA graduate students, Tung H. Ngo is well along in his doctoral research, hoping to complete his dissertation next June. Like some, he has his future mapped out both professionally (a Doctor of Osteopathy at Western University) and personally (marriage to his long-time friend, Sara Chau). But as Tung says with considerable understatement, "the road I took to UCLA was quite different."

Born just after the Viet Nam war, Tung was raised in a chaotic society whose new government seized his family's possessions and imprisoned his father. He spent his whole childhood out of school, hiding and fleeing with his parents. On their thirteenth attempt to escape from Viet Nam, Tung and his family arrived by boat at an Indonesian refugee camp where Tung spent four years in the jungle, hunting for food instead of pursuing an education.

Yet, when his family arrived in Southern California in 1992, he went right into La Quinta High School in Westminster, and "I enrolled myself." He was 17. In two years, he learned English and all the other subjects required-not only to graduate from high school but also to be accepted for UC Irvine's undergraduate program in Biological Sciences. "The energy I had is just amazing," he says.

Besides energy and determination, Tung had a goal. In Viet Nam and Indonesia, he'd seen what happens when medical attention is not available. Suffering from several congenital complications, Tung was taken to the hospital when he was 9 years old, but "when my family wasn't able to come up with the amount of money requested, they just slammed the door in our face." In the refugee camp, "people were sick and hopeless, unable to help their children get over such curable diseases as malaria," he says. To make a difference, Tung has volunteered in a variety of health care settings since he came to Southern California, and becoming a compassionate doctor is his lifelong dream.

When he was accepted at UCLA for graduate studies in Physiological Science, he "read through all the faculty descriptions" and decided that Professor R. James Barnard's work on the impact of lifestyle factors in chronic diseases "sounded really interesting," Tung says, dovetailing with his own concerns and goals. "Working with Professor Barnard turned out to be a great decision."

Professor Barnard would agree. "Tung is one of the most remarkable students I have had in my 33 years as a professor at UCLA," he says. "He is an outstanding student and researcher."

Among the projects under way in Professor Barnard's laboratory is research on the links between diet, exercise, and prostate cancer. In one study, a group of men agreed to change from a lifestyle of high-fat diet and little exercise to a program of low-fat, high-fiber diet and regular aerobic exercise. Blood samples were taken from the men before and after their lifestyle change. Then, in the laboratory, prostate cancer cells were introduced to the serum derived from those blood samples.

"It was remarkable to observe the stimulation of prostate cancer cells in the serum of men who do not diet and exercise" Tung says. "Following an intensive diet and exercise intervention, the serum seems to inhibit growth. I was able to show that some of the cancer cells actually undergo a form of cell death." Tung is first author on a paper reporting the results, which will be submitted to a scientific journal.

In a related experiment, Tung is studying the growth of prostate tumors in mice that are on lifestyle programs similar to the ones in which the men participated. He hopes to identify which genes are activated to produce the outcome of cancer stimulus or suppression. Showing that "behavioral modifications of diet and lifestyle can affect cells at the molecular level is a whole new and exciting field" and has persuaded Tung that osteopathy rather than traditional medicine is the path he wants to pursue. Osteopathy focuses on maintaining health through the additional use of behavioral and natural interventions to assist the body's self-healing capability, he says, rather than on curing diseases solely with pharmaceuticals and surgery.

While many PhDs are also MDs, few are also doctors of osteopathy, Tung reasons, and "the new field needs scientific support for its claims." Tung hopes to find a university setting where he can conduct research and do clinical work, along with teaching. He's already picked out his partner in practice, Sara Chau, who has been an inspiration to Tung since they were in high school.

When Tung arrived at La Quinta High School, Sara was at the top of the class scholastically. "She never paid attention to me because I was just a new guy from Viet Nam who didn't know English or anything," Tung recalls. But that was then. Using Sara as a role model and studying for as long as 18 hours a day, Tung ended up alongside her on the honor roll, on the awards list at graduation, and at UC Irvine, where they began to date. Now, Sara is a fourth-year student at UCLA Medical School, so their future joint practice will provide a well-rounded list of treatment alternatives.

With a past full of struggle, Tung looks forward to a future of equal accomplishment. "I appreciate what I have here," he says. "The most satisfying thing, the thing that would give meaning to my life, is to do something about what I've seen."

Published in Winter 2002, Graduate Quarterly