ORLANDO—When Raul Castillo was a young boy, he and his four siblings would occasionally visit the local power company in Camden, Ark., where their dad, also named Raul, worked as a chemist. He had developed and been recognized for PH management in cooling systems, which prevents salt water from the ocean from penetrating and corroding the power company’s water system.

 

“He would explain how the different chemicals worked,” recalled Castillo, the second of five children born to Raul and Joan Gamill, a homemaker that “bullied us to do well,” he added, with a smile.

 

The combined environmental and genetic heritage of the young Castillos served them well. His older sister, Rhonda, a chemical engineer, graduated from college at the age of 16. His younger brothers—Randal, Ronald and Rhett—worked for the same power company in sales, for the government in an education expansion program, and as a partner in a global scrap metal company that removes noxious components, respectively. 

 

Board-certified in internal medicine and medical oncology, Castillo quickly grew into a nationally-renowned oncologist and hematologist. Affiliated with Florida Hospital and a consulting associate for the Duke University Department of Medicine, he has been an investigator for sponsored and cooperative trials for the Florida Hospital Cancer Institute’s Clinical Research Center in Orlando since 1992.

 

“(The five of us) have collective memories since we all had one best friend—our parents,” recalled Castillo. “Every weekend, we had something to do—either go to my grandfather’s farm or … go fishing in the lakes or in the ocean … and we practiced every sport known to man.”

 

Even though their father was a very good baseball player, “I couldn’t catch a ball,” said Castillo, quickly adding “but none of us could.” Instead, Castillo pursued chess, winning several trophies throughout his educational career.

 

As an impressionable child, Castillo began to consider a career in medicine after his aunt developed breast cancer and was treated with a radical mastectomy. He began to hone in on oncology when as a teenager, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

 

At the University of Puerto Rico, Castillo worked on several research papers. Yet before he could overcome his fear of public speaking and present his work in various scientific forums, he forced himself to participate in school plays and give presentations.

 

Castillo’s basic work involved the study of the red blood cell membrane, specifically the phospholipid membrane. He gave his first major presentation in 1980; he earned a chemistry degree, graduating cum laude in 1981. Four years later, he earned a medical degree from the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico.

 

Castillo remained in Puerto Rico throughout his internship and internal medicine residency at Damas Hospital. He was a clinical research fellow in internal medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pa.

 

“My specialty was based on the thrill of knowledge,” said Castillo, whose Plan B involved being a biochemistry professor working on the research of cell membranes. “To me, internal medicine was more intellectual-based than the other specialties. I was also attracted to a specialty that would guide me to hematology and oncology since I had many relatives with breast cancer. Also my interest in the red cell membrane guided me to hematology.”

 

Castillo, who’s working on the incidence of thyroid cancer in patients with known breast cancer diagnosis seen by imaging studies, has a simple goal: to help Florida Hospital have the best oncology program in the state—and possibly the nation—by 2015.

 

Last fall, at the prestigious American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting where more than 30,000 experts from around the country shared significant research results, Castillo presented the findings as co-author of a research abstract on a breast cancer clinical trial. He had collaborated with a team of oncology specialists including Denise Yardley, MD,senior investigator of the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, one of the largest clinical research programs in the nation conducting community-based clinical trials in oncology, cardiology and gastroenterology. 

 

The team’s research investigated how a specific regimen of medications administered preoperatively can reduce evidence of breast cancer after the tumor is removed. This treatment of chemotherapeutic medications is designed to help women battle locally advanced breast cancer. The results of the trial were also published in the supplement of the ­Journal of Clinical Oncology, which was distributed at the ASCO conference.

 

Leslie Aldrich, administrator of the Florida Hospital Cancer Institute, which facilitates more than 100 ongoing clinical trials and was recognized in 2006 by FHCI as one of 12 community oncology programs in the country given the Clinical Trial Participation Award, noted that “presenting and being published by the American Society of Oncology for this important research is an esteemed accomplishment.”