In a live taping of the Science Will Win podcast, Host and Artificial Intelligence Expert Jeremiah Owyang speaks to cutting-edge healthcare leaders about the impact that AI is having on the future of cancer. Thirty years ago, the thought of a world without cancer was nothing more than a dream. Similarly, AI was considered a technology that had yet to become reality. Today, we are reimagining a future where the AI revolution will help change the trajectory of cancer as we know it.
In a live taping of the Science Will Win podcast, Host and Artificial Intelligence Expert Jeremiah Owyang speaks to cutting-edge healthcare leaders about the impact that AI is having on the future of cancer. Thirty years ago, the thought of a world without cancer was nothing more than a dream. Similarly, AI was considered a technology that had yet to become reality. Today, we are reimagining a future where the AI revolution will help change the trajectory of cancer as we know it.
Featured experts:
This episode was recorded live in Austin, TX on Monday March 11 as part of Pfizer’s takeover of the South by Southwest podcasting lounge.
Live from SXSW - The Future of Cancer
Bonus Episode
Narrator
Artificial intelligence is advancing at an unprecedented rate and changing the world as it goes. On. This special episode of Science Will Win. We are sharing one of a series of conversations recorded live at the Pfizer Podcasting Lounge at South by Southwest. We are talking about the role AI is playing in reshaping the landscape of cancer care.
Ai, expert, investor, and host of season three of Science will win. Jeremiah Ow Yang moderated a panel with three cancer healthcare luminaries, Julie Gerberding, CEO of the foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Ed Cox, head of Digital Health and Medicines at Pfizer. And Maima Carmo, founder of the Tiger Lilly Foundation. Together they explored the transformative potential of AI in reshaping the trajectory of cancer treatment. 30 years ago, the notion of eradicating cancer seemed distant, much like the emergence of AI in healthcare. There are so many ways that AI can help make cancer care more equitable, personalized, and effective, as well as potentially speed up research on new treatments. The panelists explored how AI is poised to redefine our approach to cancer, offering insights into the latest breakthroughs, their personal experiences with healthcare, and the collective vision for a future where we can outdo cancer. We hope you enjoy the conversation.
Jeremiah
Welcome to South by Southwest. Thanks all for coming to the podcast lounge. I'm Jeremiah, this is gonna be amazing. So we're so excited. This is a live taping. This is unlike another session, so we're so excited that you can be part of this. This is The Science Will Win podcast, the Future of Cancer. In this live taping, we're gonna talk about how AI is impacting healthcare. You know, 30 years ago, we never thought that AI would be something real in tangible, but today it is something we can touch. It's visceral and it's gonna be changing healthcare. So we're gonna be re-imagining how the AI revolution can help change their trajectory of cancer as we know it. I'm gonna be your moderator and host today. I'm Jeremiah Ow Yang general partner of the AI Fund at Blitzscaling Ventures. And you might recognize my voice from the Science Will Win podcast series on season three. I'm also joined by a star studded panel. To my left, we have mema, the founder, and CEO of Tiger Lily Foundation. Round of applause. We also have Ed Cox, head and General Manager of Digital Health and Medicines at Pfizer. We also have Julie Gerberding, CEO of the foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Welcome team. Well, let's start with some introductions. Memaw, maybe you can kick things off and tell us about you and your background and your passions, your amazing background.
Maimah
Thanks, Jeremiah. Is this good? Can y'all hear me? Yep. Woo, go. Okay. So I am Mae MCC Carmo. I am an 18 year survivor as of last week, Friday, February 28th. Um, learned I had breast cancer at a very young age, and I was told I only had five years to live, but I'm still here. 18 years later, tiger Lily was founded by me while I was in getting my chemotherapy infusion. I was laying there thinking, if I have five years to live, what can I manifest to help to change outcomes? Women who are younger, who are brown and black, and who are getting underrepresented in healthcare. Um, I'm also a justice warrior and a unicorn, and I love to challenge things that are not working for patients and reimagine as a unicorn solutions for our populations. Thanks for having me here today.
Jeremiah
Thank you Maimah, Ed.
Ed
Hi everyone, and thank you so much for coming out. I know there's a lot of really cool things people could be doing here, but I, I feel that nothing could be more fun or important than this. So, uh, my name is Ed Cox. I'm the head and GM of Digital Health and Medicines at Pfizer. I've had the good fortune of being there just over a year, and the unit that I lead is just about a year old. So it, it's a very new venture for Pfizer. Previously, uh, I had a lot of roles within health, but probably the most relevant was I was the chief executive officer and founder of a digital therapeutic in the field of Alzheimer's. Um, and we wound up getting FDA breakthrough status for a digital product in Alzheimer's. And it's, um, I liken Alzheimer's to oncology because there are so many similarities about having the family impact, the caregiver impact and, and trying to see everybody involved in a more holistic way. And so I I'm tremendously honored that Pfizer asked me to be here, and I'm really glad to be on this panel. We're
Jeremiah
So glad you're here as well. Ed. Julie, tell us about yourself.
Julie
Thank you. And I'm so happy to be here on this panel with everyone and to see this room full of people on this important subject. I, I do serve at the foundation for the NIH and our main reason for existence as a non-profit is to help the NIH bring science, new medicines, new vaccines forward to people faster by working in collaboration with people in the private sector, inpatient organizations and foundations. You might not know, it's real hard for the government to work directly with the private sector. So if you wanna have team science, you've gotta have sort of middleware that helps bring people together. And we really do bring these incredible NIH scientists together with their counterparts and life sciences, including Pfizer, who's a critical critical partner for us, inpatient organizations and people like the Gates Foundation, the Welcome, trust, et cetera. And we build partnerships to tackle pretty hard problems in science, like cancer in the pre-competitive space. One of the principles of our operation is that our data are open source. So once we have amalgamated important research information, it's available to credible researchers for use. Um, and again, trying to accelerate the bridges to breakthroughs.
Jeremiah
Thank you. See, we have a great panel for those that are listening. The room is packed. There are so many smiling faces, so exciting. The energy's here. So Pam, I wanna go right down the line. Um, each of you come from a slightly different background when it comes to healthcare and oncology, and I'd love to hear are you excited about AI when it comes to oncology and healthcare? Uh, what do you think the brightest, uh, vision is? What are the opportunities at a very high level? May I kick us off?
Maimah
So, for me, being a cancer patient diagnosed at 32 years old, found a lump at 31, they told me I couldn't have breast cancer. I was too young to come back in my forties and fifties. I could've, I would've been dead by now. I had to push for mammography, which came back clean. The technology filled me. I had to push for a biopsy, which then after a year of pushing, I learned I had triple negative breast cancer, which is the most aggressive breast cancer in women, in black women with a five year recurrence rate and double the rate of death as white woman. So imagine living your life, you're here, how it's out by having a great old time. Find a lump on your breast, get dismissed, get blown off and do, you've done all the right things, but you could die because technology wasn't fast enough to adapt to your body.
And I've lost hundreds of friends in the past 18 years that I've survived. I lost two friends last week. The blessing in AI is that it can, cancer is very tricky, right? You can have the same twins even have the same kind of treatment and different outcomes because of the genomic differences in your bodies. But with technology, we can better detect differences in people's body, better create personalized medicines, um, get biomarker testing, improve screening, improve health literacy, improve things that before may have been not been, not been possible. When somebody has the right medication fast, the right diagnosis fast, the right screening faster, the right treatment faster, they have a better chance at life. And so AI's gonna help people have better lives and better quality of life and longer life.
My daughter just finished, um, finished high school a few years ago. She's now, uh, 21 years old. She was three when I was diagnosed. And I used to be afraid that I may not get to see her, learn to ride a bike, um, meet her first boyfriend, uh, but, you know, , um, go to prom and walk across the graduation stage as a mother, that's all you want to see your babies and to be able to smell and hold them. I wanna give other mothers that same gift that I, that God's given to me. And AI can make that possible, right. For other patients.
Jeremiah
I mean, it's kind of hard to follow that, but we're, we're really glad you're here. Ed, what are the opportunities your vision for AI oncology?
Ed
Yeah, no, I I think it's kind of a fascinating time right now because, you know, AI is one of a series of technologies that have all come about under a real short period of time. And so when I think about it is how much the world has changed in less than four years. And, and one of the ways that you think about it is, you know, four years ago, none of us really used telehealth en mass. And now all of us are, um, you know, we trained the whole world on a complex multi-step at home diagnostic called a covid test. Um, all of us can now stream things. And so there's a series of things like underlying technologies that needed to come about broadband, smartphones becoming ubiquitous. And I think AI is, is the next component of that. I don't think you could have had generative ai large language models to be this powerful even a few years ago.
Ed
But also people didn't think about health in the same way a few years ago. It was sort of an afterthought versus front of mind, the orientation of how we need to think about digital health and AI as it relates to oncology is deeply person focused, right? I mean, it's, it's fun and it's cool and it's s sci-fi, but like, if, if you're not careful, you get too abstracted versus, you know, what meanwhile was saying is like the most personal of experiences. And to me that's the magic because we can do things that were not possible before while being really interpersonal.
Jeremiah
That's a great point. And technology can be personal 'cause we could have that very specific data, like you said, telehealth devices. We're wearing more. Julie, what are the visions that you have for ai, healthcare and oncology?
Julie
Well, first of all, it's just incredibly exciting, but I can't really think of an area of cancer medicine where AI isn't important or soon will be incredibly important. I mean, just you think about the, the big buckets. First, there's discovery science. How do we find new targets? How do we get that precision understanding of what, what's the biology of your cancer, your body's response to it. Uh, that's big data and structural data and systems biology. And we have to be able to use AI tools to understand and learn from that. But it moves right into the whole phase of precision diagnosis and treatment. All of the technologies risk projection. And I think ultimately in helping patients understand their journey and participate in a meaningful ways, doctors aren't really that great at medical translation and having tools to augment that and help them really understand what is going on and how do they get through all of this information that they get flooded with to really come up with good decisions and confidence and trust in the decisions that they're making. Every single one of these steps is enabled in some way. And I think we're just at the 0.5 phase of this. We'll soon be rapidly accelerating it.
Jeremiah
Thank you Julie Meemaw, one of your, your important focuses is on making sure that everybody has equal access to ai, healthcare, oncology. Maybe you could touch about what is important that the industry needs to focus on.
Maimah
How much time do you have
Jeremiah
Maimah
Well, I, I think it's important that as we put in place ai, we can't forget the human connection because a lot of things have been done to people who are black and brown that have been that I'm an African, I came here as a first generation immigrant that I learned about and I was horrified. I think for me it's been to be able to apply empathy in every situation. Industry's doing a fantastic job to innovate. There's more patient-centric engagement. But don't call me to be engaged when you already have your plan in place, right? Call me to engage before you even wanna invest in that trial. I can tell when they're coming into a community because you want something, it's called, I call it a seagull approach. You come down, get the fish and then get back in the air. Seagulls come in, they're like, I'm hungry, I want that fish, I'm gonna get it right.
And they get out. But you know, one of our sponsors recently like um, supported us to do a clinical trial trust building activity where they invested almost a million dollars in Tiger Lilly to build an a, a truly community engaged, um, activity. We're in 20 cities on the ground. We were going in communities, going in the poor community is going into community centers asking questions. We're showing what it's like to be in a clinical trial and talking about data and ai, which is really important, right? We tell people that it's important to understand why biomarker testing works because in communities that don't trust in physicians, they're not gonna go to a hospital, right? So they won't have their biomarkers to be able to detect what kind of cancer they may have and better treat the cancer. But with EHRs being in, you know, being out there, they can now assess p population data for those who are in the hospital system database, whether they're seeing a doctor or not, and be able to get that data to be able to really earmark people.
Maimah
I feel like also there are a lot more patients now who are like myself, who are not taking it, that we're only a patient, we're educating people through our angel program in terms of science research, data biomarker testing, clinical trials. So they're now partnering with industry like many of you with Pfizer to build solutions that are gonna work for with and by the patient. That's gonna be really empowering build to build trust in AI as well. 'cause people are always asking to where is our data going? What's it being done with? Is it being used to our advantage as well? And we know that the data, garbage in data is garbage out data. So how are we putting patients in, in a position of power to assess that what's going into these AI systems is gonna benefit black and brown people?
Jeremiah
And also incomplete data, right?
Maimah
Incomplete data as well. That's right. Yeah. That's our job to keep them honest. Keep everybody honest.
Jeremiah
Julie, when we're talking about data and also talking to many people around the industry, you have a very unique vantage point of the market. You're speaking to practically the whole industry. What are you hearing, what are people saying from your view?
Julie
You know, let me just follow up on this data point because I think one of the real values of the collaboration is the accumulation of a much broader set of data and an important effort to make sure that is good quality data, which really, really does matter. You know, when you're using AI tools, the reliability of the output really does depend on the priors, what goes in. And the more that goes in of high quality, the more likely the output is to be meaningful and relevant and predictive, et cetera. So by working together, there is an incentive to, um, improve all boats float a little higher, I guess is the way we think of it. But there's some challenges there because EHRs, the health records that you're talking about are all over the map. We don't have standards across health systems. We certainly don't have standards across research. FDA and NIH and other HHS agencies right now are working on how to create improvement in data standards across the Department of Health and Human Services. But we're a long way from making that easy. Now obviously AI can help with that data integration and mapping, but it's a long crunching process right now, and yet people find that incredibly valuable. We reviewed with one of our industry partners who said they have 18 people working on the data that have been generated from some of our studies. So it is important to be able to share.
Maimah
Yeah, I think though where data could be really important is to be pro proactive. We we'll be able to tell if we use AI properly, where they're the hottest spots in the country that have the highest disparities in like real-time data. Imagine being able to preempt by knowing where the hot spots are, where to also target by partnering with advocacy on determinants of health, right? Looking at transportation, looking at food, looking at people's ability to leave their jobs. I mean, I was 31 years old, my boss was like, you can go to treatment for six months, but after that, when you're back in the office, I was 30 years old in menopause, my husband left, I was exhausted. And so like there's things we can be able to target patients with, even with information on how to advocate for yourself as you get when you get a diagnosis and putting in place solutions for barriers to overcome those determinants of health as well.
Julie
Yeah, I think the, um, the data elements that will ultimately probably prove to be the most, uh, relevant are the social determinants of health. Because it is those determinants that really set the stage and explain it's not race. It's really your biology that is affected by the stress level in your lives and the community environments and the stresses and strains that you have that are so unequally distributed in our society. So we have to understand and be able to measure those. Not easy, but again, something that's inconsistently done across electronic health records or personal health records standardization will help.
Jeremiah
This is a great conversation. So let's fast forward. We have a lot of this data. We're achieving the goals that you've set forth. Mea Julie, we're working across the industry. Ed, I'd like you to comment around how AI and assuming we have this type of data can help digital health at a broader level.
Ed
I think one of the things that I always say where the power of digital health can be is empathy at scale. And I mean that in a real specific way in that, you know, we were talking about this before, no two people have the same combination of apps on their phone, right? We all have different experiences and we all use them in different ways. And yet, so it is an incredibly personal experience. And being a cancer patient or being a cancer caregiver is an incredibly personal experience. Your experience is just yours and digital is this really personal thing, and yet it's also scaled, right? There's 6 billion smartphones in the world when you think about these solutions. They are, they are in the hundreds of millions. And so somehow we've connected these two things to be something, maybe the most personal thing you have, maybe the very first thing you look at when you wake up in the morning.
Ed
I try to look at my wife first and then my phone, but like it's a 50 50. So you're talking about the most personal thing maybe in your whole world is, is your digital devices. Um, and yet they are scaled in a way that nothing else in human history has really ever done. You know, maybe with the exception of books. And so I think that that's really, really thrilling and exciting. And I also think where the power of AI can be is in some ways in these very crunchy kind of things that makes everyone's person, uh, and everyone's experience a little bit better. So a a good example is there's so much around the data, there's so much about the optimization and grinding, but I think we're gonna get to a point that the admins in hospitals and the admins and care centers have AI support that will just make their life better. And that's the thing is if we just made everyone in the stacks life three or four or 5% better, that's gonna have this really profound effect. And so to me, I think AI is, is not the last breakthrough, but it is the most recent breakthrough to take digital health to the next scale because health is never gonna get less digital no way. Right? It's a one-way street. And I think this is a real powerful way to do that.
Jeremiah
Thank you for that. Let's talk about kind of a potentially scary future around how AI could be used. And I want to introduce the crowd to the topic of a term called synthetic data. Now, if you're not familiar with this, this is happening in the AI industry, uh, where AI creates images. You've heard of midjourney or Dolly or synthetic text, open ai, GBT creates that content. What we're seeing in like the marketing industry is marketers are testing their marketing campaigns on, uh, generated customers called synthetic customers. What we're going to see, and we're already starting to see is synthetic data for patients or, um, anticipating how would people react to potential clinical trials or how would patients react to, um, marketing campaigns from healthcare companies or pharmaceuticals. And I wanted to get the panel's feedback on synthetic data as it's quickly coming to the forefront. Maybe Julie, do you have a comment on that? We'll get to everybody.
Julie
Well, my first comment is bad word synthetic. Oh yeah.
Jeremiah
What would be better?
Julie
Let's, let's think about that. I mean, I think already we're seeing where, um, you can do twinning studies where maybe you have a patient but you can find a control, um, sort of amalgamated control who has all the characteristics of that patient except the one thing you're trying to study. So it's already happening, but I think we need to have a lot of conversation about what that really means and how we're going to validate it. And I'm sure the FDA is going to have a lot of conversations on what they do with clinical trial data that are coming from synthetic people,
Jeremiah
Okay. Well said. I think those are great points. Ed, synthetic data.
Ed
Yeah, I mean, I think some of it is we need to not get hyped by our own jargon, right? Like, like there is obviously synthetic data that's real that's gonna be out there. But again, it it goes to about what I was saying at the beginning is there are so many very viable uses of AI that are much more straightforward. And, and I think if what we're saying is it's like, look, we can call it whatever we want, but if, if we're just processing data faster, that is a good organic step along the way. If we're using any kind of technology to get further from the person, then regardless of what the technology is, then that, that's not good. And so the thing is, is that AI is a tool. It's just a tool. It's like anything else. It's, it's a hammer or a screwdriver.
Ed
And if we imagine it, it is this thing unto itself, you know, I mean, hammers are not self-aware, right? And so like, it is a tool that can be used in a way. And I think if we were just obsessed about saying like, how would I explain this to my mom in the kitchen? How would I explain this to my little girl? If that's the way that we're thinking about it? And AI is a tool that facilitates that, then it's a force for good. But I think that if you work backwards from that moment, and then one tool, you know, large language models, generative ai, you know, structural ai, traditional ai, it's, they're just different tools that you're using, but working backwards from the patient and the caregiver and the human.
Maimah
I love what you mentioned about, again, I love the word empathy that you mentioned earlier. We know the Healthcare Force workforce burned out, right? They're so burned out. Um, my mom was a nurse, she would work, she would work 12 and 16, 18 hour shifts, right? But after the pandemic, people are seeing even like colonoscopy screenings are like months, years behind the be behind what they do, right? So having AI support healthcare workers, to me that's empathy for the human being with this technology that that's a win for me, right? Um, we're seeing AI could cut healthcare costs to better detect, you know, adverse events, um, improve referrals, automate authorization and other processes. I love that. But when you pair with a human, at the end of the day, when you go to a doctor appointment for anything, what do you want the most? Someone has to hold your hand. That's when you can breathe. So I think the beauty is marrying empathy with the electronic, the technology is that, whereas that's where the wind's gonna be for all of us.
Jeremiah
Ed, let's talk more about the practical applications, uh, for AI in an everyday scenario. So you kind of touched on this, but for example, imagine a mother who was just diagnosed with cancer. How can AI just help them in a practical way?
Ed
Yeah, I mean, I think what's interesting is that, and I understand why we came to this point, but there's still a lot of processes that are extremely manual and there's even a lot of paper like still printed paper that is walking someone through this moment. So someone goes in and like the worst news they've ever had, right? It was like when Devin was speaking earlier today, right? About when he got, he got the news about his little girl, it was like it shattered his world, right? Any of us who've had a loved one that got that diagnosis, it shatters their world and shatters ours. And then what happens is someone probably ends you a big packet of paper, right? Which is understandable, but I mean, my gosh. And so, and so I think these are ways in which ai, and I know I sound like a broken record, but it's because it's the right thing to advocate for, is that if the way that we're walking a mom, my mom through this journey, or my daughter through this journey is, is with AI as a guide, AI as a way to frame it, AI as a way to point you to the best information or maybe someday points you to the best clinical trials or, or, or it's there in this tool.
I mean, people, people feel emotionally concussed. It's like they got hit by a car and they're stumbling out of it. And anything that we can do to put power and information at their fingertips in the moment they need that is gonna profoundly change that first window. And, and those are all examples that I think AI can do today. There's no, no technological change for that.
Jeremiah
Thank you, ed. Uh, Julie, you worked across the industry. So let's talk about collaboration. You worked in academia, government and across the healthcare space. Do you see maybe there's some ways that AI can help collaboration amongst those groups? Just like the practical examples Ed gave for a patient?
Julie
I do, but I, I just wanna add to what Ed said is that when someone's concussed, usually information isn't what they need. What they need is empathy
Um, but to your question about collaboration and what's been learned, you know, what's been reassuring to me having moved through these different sectors is how aligned we really are. You know, there are all kinds of stigmas about working for big pharma or you know, the government is slow or academicians are out of touch. At the end of the day, there is passion to solve these problems and people know the tools are at hand. We can feel the science and the possibility of the science. So the passion is what I think really motivates the collaboration and gets people up in the morning. And it's the patient community that really gives us that visible incentive. So it's a really spirited time for really, really amazing collaboration.
Ed
Yeah, I mean to one of the points that Julie made is this is one of the only industries that the end result of what we do is someone lives longer. Like you're literally in the lifesaving business. That's magic. That's magic. We could do so many other things. And there are so many other things that are interesting and compelling, but like you either want someone to live longer or live better. And like the idea that every single day we get to wake up as all of us that are touching healthcare, right? All of us are touching healthcare. The end result of what we do is try to save people's lives. And like, what an inspiring thing. I mean, cancer is a terrible dragon, mini dragons even, and they all deserve to be slayed. So that's why we have unicorns and that's why we have knights and that's why we have all kinds of other mythical ways to think about ourselves because waking up every day and saying, okay, this new ai, okay, ai, AI is maybe Excalibur, it's not me, but it's a tool. Can I use this today where the end result is someone lives longer or lives better, and that is more than we could ever ask for. When you think about inspiring yourself, because that's a critical part of this
Jeremiah
You are getting, uh, really positive, uh, feedback from the crowd on that. Ed, Maimah, I actually wanna touch, touch upon one of the comments you made earlier and let's really expand on it. And I'd like to hear your thought on how we can be more focused on preventative before somebody comes sick, become sick, and if AI plays a role in that.
Maimah
I had a friend of mine who, um, she had breast cancer twice. She recovered both times. Her cancer had returned metastatic, she called me and when I went to her hospi the hospital, it was everywhere. So I spent every day with her until she died. She, she died in two and a half weeks. And that's something that's been one of the most shocking things in my I've ever experienced. How could AI help better change her judiciary of her journey could have helped her doctor know how to monitor, you know, what's happening in her body before it happens, right? That's where the power of AI is. So how are we democratizing AI and who's getting it and, and, and how it's working for those populations? I think for me, the real power has been for me as healthcare changes, people who are healthcare workers are tired, they're worn out. Overburdened is the patient's voice is everything. You have to understand the importance of asking the right questions. Here's what they are, going to the right places knowing what to do. And to me, AI can help people better get the right questions and answers faster. And so getting patients educated about what to ask for, when to ask for and then, um, to be able to have access to those tools is really, really important as well.
Jeremiah
Julie, picking up on what MEMA said, uh, let's talk about pa patient-centric innovation. So you're the CEO of FN and ih, how do you prioritize patient-centric innovation when it comes to oncology?
Julie
You know, when I was at Merck, I was the chief patient officer of the company. And so I learned a lot since I trained as on the front lines of HIV, my patients were my best teachers. So I know to go to the patients when you need to understand something, but I really hadn't thought of it as, as sort of an end-to-end process. So, you know, it's a process of asking learning. I used to go to, um, small round tables for example. I had to be in California for something. I would ask, could I meet with some of the patient organizations in the community? Tell me what your experience is with our company. What should we be doing better? Where are we doing a good job? Where are we missing the boat? So you have to really have someone who stands strong for that. And I think in cancer it's more important than in any other, um, aspect of medicine because it is so frightening and you're dealing with people whose lives are being prematurely, you know, cut off in the best years of their life in many cases.
Julie
So defining what patient centricity really means is, in my opinion, just caring about the patient and really making sure that that's the first thing you think about. And the last thing you think about, at the end of the day in an organization like the one I'm operating under, we are also on a learning curve and we've done some of the easy steps. We've created a patient counsel, we've invited patients to participate in helping us decide what projects we should be taking on. We are including the patients on the governance committees of our clinical trial design so that they're actually meaningfully participating, not just checking a box that we have a patient in the room and we have a monthly meeting of everyone in the organization. That always starts with someone describing their lived experience with one of the illnesses that we're addressing because it brings people back in touch with, oh yes, that is that passion that we have in the work that we do. Sometimes you just have to be reminded 'cause you get caught up in all the day-to-day stuff. But I don't think I've seen an organization yet that has this figured out. I think I've seen some organizations that are working really hard with patients and, and their caregivers and advocates to try to continuously improve. And that's what I'm aiming to do. Let let's keep learning and keep talking and the candid conversation really matters. I know you do that at Pfizer also. It's really important that you have those conversations and sometimes they're really hard to listen to
Jeremiah
Ed. You're a leader. You've heard this, the input and the great ideas from the panelists around you love to hear your philosophy. What principles do you have when it comes to leadership to drive innovation and to what you are saying? Empathy with ai?
Ed
Yeah, I, I think like any kind of job, if you do it long enough, things become patterns and sometimes you kind of forget what you're doing or why. And and then I also think that within the field of life science, because so many things aren't successful, so many things don't eventually get to market people, people can get fatigued, people can get bummed out, they can get discouraged. And so I think from a, from a leadership standpoint, when I'm leading my team, there's a couple things that I, I try to drive back to is that one rehumanizing what we're doing. You know, lots of times companies try to do that, but I think on an individual leader level, you can do that. You can do that by understanding your team and their families and what they've gone through and you make it personal for them, right?
The other thing is kind of what, you know, the, the monologue I did a few moments ago is like, be romantic about it. Like remember that you're doing important work, that the outcome of the important work is the probably the greatest outcome of any work that could be done. And lots of times people forget that. They like say, oh, I work for a corporation. No, you work in the business of saving lives, that's what you do. And lots of times people just, it hasn't occurred to them. It's not like once they hear it, they haven't, they disagree, it's just they just haven't thought about it. You just kind of get into a job and then you per, you know, work on it. And some things work and some things fail, but it all begins to feel abstract. And so I think from a leader, part of what is powerful is making it all feel real to that person.
Because if they really get that, if they really realize what it is that they get to do every day, it is incredibly compelling and easy way to inspire people because it's inspiring. And so for me that's more than anything else, it's understanding people and also removing roadblocks as a, as a great leader, I think the two things, maybe three things you can do is lay out incredibly great strategy, passionately pour into your team and remove anything that's blocking your team. And that's universally true. And so that's, I'm fortunate I work in an industry that it's, it's easy to get someone passionate if they really think that the end result is lifesaving.
Jeremiah
Team. I'm gonna call you team now 'cause we're all working together, right? So I work in the tech industry, Silicon Valley, I invest in the AI startups, you know, I talk to the big tech companies. I want your advice. What should the tech industry who you're in some cases dependent on to accomplish these goals, what should we do better? And then I'll have a final question for you as a follow up. What advice do you give to the tech industry? Anybody?
Ed
Okay. I, I think I got defaulted on being the expert, which is always a dangerous place. I think something that they're beginning to do, but I would advocate that they do more is lean in, right? Like health is a still somewhat new sector for all these big tech companies. They're, they're sort of operating on the fringes. Some are some more than others, but if you think about it is it's maybe the only sector that influences or that impacts every single human on the planet, right? And so it's the kind of thing that I think big tech and technology startups, even the more that they are saying, okay, this matters to us. We need to stand up divisions with this. We need to be intentional about our thinking. And not, not that it's an afterthought, but it's a forethought. I think that that's huge. And then from the startup standpoint, I would say this is, most startups have founders that have very specific life experiences and sometimes that makes it get, creates a pretty big blind spot to the patient life experience. That's
Jeremiah
Right. Most of the founders are white and Asian men.
Ed
Yeah. Well, and and not only that, most of 'em are young and probably healthy, right? Like a really good example is, you know, I, I'll just take 10 seconds, but like, there are very few technology, uh, companies in the field of Alzheimer's because almost no tech startups have ever been around Alzheimer's patients. Why different age brackets? A whole series of other things. It's the same thing is that typically if someone is a digital health startup in the field of cancer, it's because someone close to someone died. And that is sort of the, that's the spark, that's the origin. But they, they may not spend as much time in the life of the patient as they need. And so it goes back to this idea that like if you're inventing solutions, but you're not inventing solutions that the person really desperately needs. And so those are the two is one big tech, please lean in, start up, you know, get in the life of the patient to understand 'em better.
Julie
I just wanna add a probably unpopular follow on to that. And that is that if you're, I'm gonna wear my doctor hat. If you have patients coming in with their self-generated health data on this app, then on that app, this ring, this device, it's totally unstandardized. And you have the difficult challenge of having to interpret a universe of startup tech data coming in, in all sorts of formats and sorts. So you really would struggle to make use of that information in making decisions or helping that patient understand their decisions. So I'm kind of pushing for some standardization. Um, and I, you know, I know that sounds anti-competitive, but I think we do need to kind of help the industry come to some agreements on at least the most important core measures so that you know that you're apples to apples, oranges to oranges.
Maimah
I wanna see that a patient, um, a part of the money is going towards patient groups, um, for things like clinical trials, right? We see that there la lack of black women in clinical trials. How can the tools be used to get more black women in clinical trials? So that's what I wanna see more investment in. Not just how can I sleep better, eat better work, work out better. I want more apps that are helping people to solve specific measurable actions that lead to equitable outcome that are sustainable
Jeremiah
Well thought out. My last question for the Esteem panel is paints a vision for the audience on how AI is gonna help oncology and healthcare five years out from now.
Ed
Uh, I'll go first to stall for the rest of the panel.
Julie
I would just take it a step further. In 10 years, I think we're going to be using cure as the word in our vocabulary when we make a diagnosis of cancer because I think that the precision diagnosis and the precision treatment is going to progress that rapidly where we will really begin to understand the biology and we will know what drugs and when and how to keep up with chemo resistance and so forth. So I think it's a cure, not for everything, probably realistically, but for a lot
Maimah
For me, I think that my goal or my dream is that Tiger Lily won't exist to treat people with cancer, but to empower, uplift, support and encourage badass women to do great things for their families and have a better quality of life. I mean, you said what I was gonna say, right? I think that imagine all the money going into healthcare, going into life care and empathy in healthcare and quality of life, and eradicating determinants of health and barriers, not just in, you know, the other things, right? Which are important now. So the word cure will be a word that we all use, not death, in that the money will go into quality of life, fun, joy, family memories, and we'll see other mothers seeing their daughters walk across stages with their tassels turned to the other side, thrown in the air and celebrating what family means to us all.
Jeremiah
Thank you all for coming. This has been a live taping of the Science We'll Win podcast, the Future of Cancer, or should we say the Future of Cure. Thank you so much, south by Southwest.