An expert medical panel discuss the nature of cancer research, and attempt to find the truth. David Agus, Donald Abrams, Michele Norris, Niven R. Narain, Ralph Moss, Shimon Slavin are in conversation. Location: Paepcke Auditorium"
Bio
Donald Abrams
Dr. Donald I. Abrams is a cancer and integrative medicine specialist at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Mount Zion. Abrams provides integrative medicine consultations for cancer patients and has completed research in complementary and alternative therapies including mind-body treatments, botanical therapies, medical use of marijuana and traditional Chinese medicine herbal therapies.
In addition to his role at the Osher center, he is chief of Hematology and Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital. Abrams, who has been in the forefront of HIV/AIDS research and treatment, stepped down from the HIV Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital in August 2006 to devote more time to integrative medicine and oncology. He is an executive committee member of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and is co-chair of of the center's program in Symptom Management, Palliative Care and Survivorship. In 2004, he completed an associate fellowship in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona.
David Agus
David Agus is a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering and heads USC’s Westside Cancer Center and the Center for Applied Molecular Medicine. He is one of the world’s leading cancer doctors and the co-founder of two pioneering personalized medicine companies, Navigenics and Applied Proteomics. Agus is an international leader in new technologies and approaches for personalized health care and chairs the Global Agenda Council on Genetics for the World Economic Forum. He has received numerous awards, including the 2009 Geoffrey Beene Foundation’s Rockstar of Science Award. Agus’s first book, The End of Illness, was published in January and is a New York Times best-seller.
Ralph Moss
Ralph W. Moss is the author of twelve books and three documentaries about cancer. His most recent book, Customized Cancer Treatment, is the first study of chemosensitivity and resistance assays. His articles have recently appeared in the journals Immunbiology, Lancet online, and Pharmacological Research. For the past 35 years he has independently evaluated various cancer treatments. He directs The Moss Reports, writes a column for The Townsend Letter, and edits the online newsletter Advances in Cancer Treatment. Moss was a science writer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center from 1974 to 1977.
Niven Narain
Niven R. Narain is co-founder, president, and chief technology officer of Berg Pharma, which focuses its research on understanding how alterations in metabolism relate to disease onset. His passion is innovation that drives patient care and the generation of actionable biological data. He discovered BPM 31510, the novel cancer drug in late stage clinical development for skin cancers and solid tumors. Most notably, Narain developed the Interrogative Biology platform, which uses core biological modeling to develop safe, effective drugs in a cost-effective manner. He has over 160 issued and pending patents and was director of cutaneous oncology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Narain is committed to changing the paradigm of innovation in medicine.
Michele Norris
Michele Norris is host of NPR’s “All Things Considered.” For the year leading up to the 2012 presidential election, Norris has recused herself from hosting duties while her husband takes a position as a senior advisor on the Obama campaign. During this time, she is focusing on producing signature segments and features, including the “ATC” series the Backseat Book Club, and working on new reporting projects, including the Race Card project. She is the author of the 2010 memoir, The Grace of Silence. She is co-winner of the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia Award for the NPR series “The York Project: Race and the ’08 Vote” and was chosen in 2009 as Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists. As a correspondent for ABC News from 1993 to 2002, she earned Emmy and Peabody awards for her contribution to the network’s September 11, 2001 reporting.
Shimon Slavin
Shimon Slavin is professor of medicine and medical and scientific director of the International Center for Cell Therapy and Cancer Immunotherapy in Tel Aviv, Israel. Slavin pioneered the use of immunotherapy mediated by donor lymphocytes and innovative methods for stem cell transplantation for the cure of hematological malignancies and solid tumors, and more recently, the use of multi-potent stem cells for regenerative medicine. His development of new procedures based on clinical application of the most advanced basic science and biotechnology at the patient’s bedside attracts patients from all over the world. Slavin has written four books and more than 650 scientific publications and serves on many editorial boards and many national and international advisory boards. He has received many international awards in recognition of his excellence in basic science and clinical medicine, introducing new therapeutic concepts that paved the road for successful treatment of patients considered incurable by conventional medicine.
David Agus, professor of medicine and engineering at the USC's Keck School of Medicine, argues that cancer treatment is too focused on "germ theory", and fails to take into consideration that a cure might be different for every patient.
