Download Dr. Leanna Standish`s biggest fear has always been cancer. After

Dr. Leanna Standish’s biggest fear has always been cancer. After losing many of her family
members to the disease, she decided to take on the challenge of curing it. When asked if this task
was too great, she replied, “Never.” Her will to overcome this close-to-home obstacle has made
the quest her everyday driving force.
Leanna Standish, ND, PhD, Lac, FABNO is a neuroscientist and a naturopathic physician who is
board certified in naturopathic oncology. She is currently the medical director of the Bastyr
Integrative Oncology Research Center and a clinical research professor at the Bastyr University
Research Institute. She has served as principal investigator on several National Institutes of
Health (NIH) research grants since 1994.
Dr. Standish searched high and low, near and far to find something…anything…to aid in the
cure. Her gut told her there were natural medicines that were likely weapons. This is what
brought her to Trametes versicolor, turkey tail mushrooms, and the isolation of Polysaccharide-K
(PSK) and its anticancer activity in human clinical trials. Although being highlighted recently in
cancer treatment, this mushroom has been used for thousands of years in Asia. Currently, there
are two trials open in Seattle, WA in collaboration with the Bastyr, the University of
Washington, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, and others, funded by the NIH. The US Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved a clinical trial for the turkey tail extract PSK. The
trial will follow patients with advanced prostate cancer to taking PSK in combination with
conventional chemotherapy. Another trial pending FDA approval will test the effects of the
extract in combination with a vaccine treatment in women with breast cancer.
She has provided adjunctive naturopathic medical care to hundreds of cancer patients, and has
worked collaboratively with Seattle area oncologists to provide integrated conventional/CAM
care. A founding board member of the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians, Dr.
Standish was board certified in naturopathic oncology in 2006. Her recognition by the oncology
community as an expert in naturopathic medicine is evidenced by her being voted one of
Seattle’s Best Physicians in the Seattle Metropolitan Magazine in 2002, 2004 and 2008. She has
been a member of both the NIH and the Department of Defense study sections for scientific
review of CAM research in cancer.
Dr. Standish has been a member of SIO for many years and credits Donald Abrams, MD of the
UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, SIO Past President, for introducing her to this
society.