Matthew McConaughey Stands Up to Cancer

daughter who lives in Los Angeles. But the real reason I'm coming, as much as I love you and Ellie my daughter, is to support a cause that's very near and dear to my heart and one that I really haven't talked about that much on this podcast until today. That is That's right in this episode, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you're going to be excited about this because it's something that I'm so passionate about. We'll be diving

into cancer and cancer research. Many of you might remember or that I lost my extraordinary first husband, Jay Monahan, to colon cancer twenty years ago, if you can believe that, right before his forty second birthday. I was the co anchor of the Today Show and many viewers lived the

experience almost along with me. And just a few years later, I lost my sister Emily two pancreatic cancer when she was fifty four in a rising star and politics uh to tremendous losses for me and my family and Jay's family. But what people might not realize, Katie, is that you actually turned those tragedies into something more positive because you co founded with eight other women this extraordinary organization called

Stand Up to Cancer. And I was blown away to learn that you've raised nearly half a billion dollars since it was founded ten years ago. You know, I couldn't just rest on my laurels when it came to colin oscophees Brian. I felt that so many cans sers deserved our attention, and the ladies at Stand Up to Cancer and the entire organization, because after all, it does take a village, will not rest until more money is raised.

And the day after this episode drops, I'll be in l A to mark the ten year anniversary of Stand Up to Cancer and the live telecast that we've been having every other year since its inceptions, So if you'd like to tune in, the telecast will be broadcast on seventy broadcast and cable networks as well as streaming platforms and online So honestly, if you're anywhere near a screen or even a phone, you are not going to be able to avoid this telecast on Friday Night, and just

as an additional sweetener for people. In addition to these extraordinary stories an amazing sinus, the telecast is also going to feature a lot of star power, including the likes of Bradley Cooper and Reese Weatherspoon and ma Hershela Ali. I should probably explain, Brian to our listeners how Stand Up to Cancer puts the dollars it raises to work.

Our goal is to really accelerate groundbreaking, promising cancer research and mandate we don't encourage, we require collaboration instead of competition. So we have set up dream teams of scientists who are focused on various cancers like pancreatic cancer or nanotechnology.

Epigenetics have become quite the scientific researcher, right, Brian, and these dream teams are basically a scientific task force and the ideas to get them uh these top researchers from different institutions to work together so they can develop new approaches and new treatments for this terrible disease that claims far too many lives every single year. And later in the show, we're going to hear from a top oncologist who has contributed enormously to Stand Up to Cancers research efforts.

He answers a lot of your questions and mind Katie about the future of cancer research, the most promising therapies, now, what you should do if you're diagnosed with cancer, etcetera, etcetera, And he will give us the big picture. Bill Nelson, I have a little crush on Bill. Don't tell him, by the way, Brian. But another person I have a little crush on is Matthew McConaughey. He's been such an important supporter of Stand Up to Cancer and we're so

lucky to have so many celebrities stand with us. And that's because, what can I say, Brian, stars, they're just like us, they too have been affected by cancer. So I recently chatted with Matthew about why this work has become so important to him and how it's affected him personally. Tell me why you wanted to get involved with Stand Up to Cancer? Um, I think I was involved in Stand Up to Cancer actually before cancer affected people very

close to me. So Lisa Boston asked me to be involved in two thousand fifteen with the whole campaign, and I said yes. And then shortly after that, I believe is when it actually cancer did affect some people in my near circumference, very very good friend of mine, one of my best friends of twenty years um got cancer, and then um someone in my family got it. And you know when it happened. Uh want it scary too? You want to go, well, I need. I want to

get all the information I can. You know what experts can help me, can help. Then It's amazing how when a cancer diagnosis affects someone you know and love, or even yourself, it's you're suddenly immersed in this new world of terms and sort of science and drugs and alternative therapies and approaches. It can be so overwhelming, can it? Yes? And I think it's hard, especially if you're going through

it you're self sometimes. I know, in the case of my husband, when he was diagnosed, as smart as he was, he didn't really want to know. He didn't want to see the research for the science and his statistics. He didn't, so you did, and then you helped shepherd and guide him from there. Okay, yes, And I think that's the case. I think some patients want to know and some patients don't. And did you feel like you needed to be that sort of explorer and you needed to really understand it

so you could help the people you love? That That's exactly I felt like I was the one who needed to do the expiration. I was the one who needs to get the access to the expert, get the knowledge, gather it as much and fore and wide as I could, and then sit down and go over options, and go over practicalities, and go over long shots and go over repercussion. And you do this. This is you know, it goes

to that question this makes in life? But there may be more pain than you have that question quality of life versus quantity Along the way and um, different questions arise, And I was I've been in a position where I was the hunter and gatherer of the information and went to stand up to cancer to find out so much of that information. And then, as you know, it's up

to the individual has it. It's there there. It becomes down to that personal choice, which is, you know, not ours unless we're the unless we're the one to make, which is, what do you want to do, and there's many there's many signposts along the way. Here's where we are, here's the new here's a new evolution in the disease. What do you want to do, Here's what we can do,

what would you like to do? In some cases, there's not a lot that can be done, and it's very difficult in this day and age when there's so many you know, medications and science has taken us so far that many of these cancers continue to be so vaccine. Yeah, I mean, look, there's obviously there's not a magic pill. Um, there's not that major break that says we've figured it out, we know how to cure all these many types of cancer. Um.

And so that's frustrating, um, but it's a reality. And as you know, you gotta get on with the reality that we if we the people's shepherding and helping out those with cancer, if we get over the frustrated, it's no help to the to the to the to the victim or the one with cancer. So I just I just personally try to take a very practical approach and say, let me keep pounding on trying to do the homework.

Let me personally talk to that their doctor along the way and get let me can give me the straight nuts emotionally along the way. What what are we really talking about? What's the you know what? Give me percentages? Where are we? And let's be real. And both of both the people that my friend and the family member that I worked wanted to know the straight stuff. One of them towards the end didn't want to know it anymore. So not I don't want to hear anymore. Just let

me enjoy in my ignorance right now. I don't want to hear anymore the stats for me. The other one wanted to know the whole way, the whole way until until they actually ended up they did move on. I was gonna ask you about the outcome for both of these people. We'll both have moved on. They're no longer

with us in this life on this earth. Um. Besides, as you know, with just the disease of cancer, there's a lot of personal want to needs that anyone on the way out once or doesn't want, um do they it was there are things incomplete in their life for their relationships that were incomplete that they just want to have. Let me just finish that off. Then there's the question of you know, how much pain do you want to go through? Is more time I'm worth more pain? Or no,

I want to fight it till the end. I'll go through whatever pain because I may be able to break through it. How long did you keep fighting on that? How long do you go? You know what is too much pain? Let me, let let me, let me, let

me fade out? UM. And then you know you're waiting every day and you think something else might come off and there is a new break through and the hey, we could try this, and then you try all you can and so many people have survived, Like I said, fifteen and a half million survivors running around living their life now UM. And I think less cases now in

the United States, and it used to be UM. So you hope, you know that you're that the person you're shepherding is going to be one of those fifteen and a half million, or the next, the next one. UM. At the same time, I mean this, it's it's the son of a bitch man. This thing, it's a beast,

and we don't have it last so yet. But you know, it's like I said at the beginning, and it's helpful to whoever as it and it's helpful to ever of us is helping do the homework and shepherd our love to one out to know that someplace like Stand Up to Cancer is a place. It's going to get you all the information you can get, so you don't have a black hole there once in case they do move on. Oh should I? Would I? And could I have? That's

the way I felt with my husband. You know, I wanted to make sure I did everything I possibly could. So this was before Stand Up to Cancer even existed, but I was calling pharmaceutical companies in Israel. I was doing so much research and calling universities and organizations and hoping that we could manage his disease long enough that another thing, another breakthrough would occur. And I think that's how you operate when you're trying to help someone you

love with you were operating like that. At the same time this, Your husband was like, I don't want to I don't want to know anymore. Don't tell me about it, kay, Do you do the do the homework for me? Let me? Was he saying, just tell me where to go, but

I don't want to know all of them? He didn't really say it specifically, But I also shielded him from a lot, which now I have some regrets about because I think I didn't want to tell him how bad it was, because he was so advanced when he was diagnosed. You know, he had stage four calling cancer and he had tumors all over his liver and it was just so bleak that I made the choice of feeling that I didn't want to ruin whatever time he had left. But that really wasn't my decision to make, so now

I feel bad about it. Maybe it was, I don't know. I know when you played ron Woodriff and Dallas Buyer's Club, the HIV positive person who told I was told you at thirty days, which was such an unbelievable, extraordinary performance. I know you won an Academy Award for that, but you actually channeled a little bit of int of yours who you saw dying of cancer. Oh yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, that would be a third that was that was pre

two thousand and fifteen. Yes, indeed, it was a good friend of mine who slowly can't got the best of him. Um and he was one of those fighters. He was one of those you know, uh till the bitter in teeth, non growling streaming como gritting to youth, I'm going to make it, which is what he he gnawed at the situation, did not want to go gently into this good night going to fade out at all, um, And he didn't until his his body broke down enough where his willpower

couldn't overcome it. But you used him in a way, the image of him to model a little bit from performance. I don't know how literal that would that was. It was just somebody, uh in my life and a friend who had come and he had always been a fighter when before he was sick, and then afterwards I just remember there's that he was. You know, he was like a like a coyote and he just like if if he was stuck, he was willing to no off his leg to get out of the trap. He was willing

to do to do anything. And so he went pretty quickly, you know, like he I saw him very shortly before he moved on, and he still had as much fighting him as he did you know, eight months earlier. Um, But it was it was more his willpower to say no, no, no, I'm not going, and if I do go, it's going to be on the last drop of of life that

I have. Is there something about stand Up to Cancer and the way it's sort of operating and focusing on collaboration versus competition and really trying to change how cancer research is on that made you want to support this organization because there are a lot of groups doing great work when it comes to cancer. I mean, look all medicine and medicine should not, nor has ever invented to

become a competition. And we know rightfully so that it's also a big business, which makes it a competition in places. Um Uh, you know it's it's like it's like teaching, you know what I mean. It's like if you have a if you have a good idea, a good class, scale it out, share it for free. Come on, what's the end goal? Um? So the collaboration that Stand Up uses is how it ought to be. Um, I wouldn't be.

You know, there are some people that, yes, compete, they still do some good work, but it shouldn't be a private club. You know that that somebody who's not in that club does not have access to the expertise that they could offer. So, you know, and we don't have it. It's not figured out yet, So we need a lot

more collaboration. No one's got that, Like I said, no one's got the magic pill, you know, So let's go far and wide because all you know, all bets are still on the table for what's the best way and how to handle and diagnose and treat different type of cancers are For so long, research was siloed and people did not share their knowledge or test results or tissue samples.

And the thought is, if we do collaborateive scientists share what they're doing, then if two heads are better than one, ten heads are better than two, and we can get treatments to patients in a much faster at a much faster rate. That's just common sense, you know. I know that your most famous line from your very first movie, which I rewatched days and dazed and confused. This morning we watched some clips. It's a good way to start today. You just got to keep living, man. Is that is

that your message to people who are fighting cancer? Too? Sure? I mean, that's that's a line that that is universal. You had a specific to everybody. They can imply to their own lives however they want to um. It was inspired because my father moved on and it was about how I was how I was dealing with my relationship with him, and he had just moved on. So that was five days into your shooting. That five days into

shooting Day's Confuse was my first acting job. My father moved on and uh I went home for that weekend, spent the weekend. We had to wake and the whole family should get you back there to work. Um, nothing you can do here, go back to it. And I think it was like the first night we were back. It was seen on the football field and I had been obviously, you know, doing some soul searching with how to what it all meant. Physically was gone, but they

just keep living. Came from well you still keep someone spirit alive even though maybe physically they're not here, not personally, you know. For me, just keep living. I applied to many parts of my life, and I think everyone can apply it in their own different way. It's just keep living. Mean, I want to like that friend of mine that's going, I want to live as long I want to live. I'll take quantity over quality. I don't care how much

pain them in. I want to live longer. For some it is others that just keep living choice Maybe you know what enough of the pain right now. I'm I'm I'm I'm ready. I'm talking about quality of life. And I don't want to take the pain that I'm in right now for another however, many weeks, days, months. I don't want the quantity. I don't want more quantity. I'm good right now, And that's up to each individual to say.

And it's also, as you know, it's it's a conversation that we need to have with our friends and loved ones before they're so sick, before they're in that much pain, to have it, you know, and at a time where there is lucid as possible as a society, we have such hard time talking about death. Yeah, and yet it's one of the things, one of the guarantees, you know. I wish we didn't have such a hard time talking

about it. I think sometimes talking about it it feels like a concession to some people, you know, I've got to I've got a woman very close to me who who um beat three types of cancer and didn't tell didn't tell me she had it until her third one and never went to doctors, And what were you doing for what she was taking to aspirin? But her attitude and her mental makeup had so much to do where they're making it. Um, she was actually stayed in denial.

So I think talking about death or even sometimes people going to see a doctor to concede and go I need to get some help can make sometimes make our our our our immune and innate reaction be like, oh now I've now I'm a victim. Now I'm now I'm conceding that death is out there, and I think something that feels on people feel weak about that. But um, I think it's good if we can talk about it up front as early as possible, because it's happening one

day or another. It's happening. Well, as somebody involved with Stand Up to cancer, I can't tell you how much we appreciate your lending your name and celebrity to this because I think it inspires other people and makes them want to get involved. And if they see someone they admire and like kind of standing up for stand up, hopefully they'll follow suits. So thank you for doing that. Well, I've got a personal investment in it people in my

own life. So who does that? You know? One and two men one in three women will be diagnosed in their lifetimes, So like it or not. There's very few people escape it, so thank you, thank you for doing it. My pleasure. That wraps things up with a one and only Matthew McConaughey, folks, and we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with our second guest, Dr Bill Nelson, from the Sydney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center

at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. We're back, you know, Brian. As much as I appreciate celebrities like Matthew McConaughey who lend their star support to this cause, some of the real heroes in this fight, I'm sure Matthew would agree, are the scientists and doctors and clinicians who are working day in and day out to find new ways to help patients fighting cancer. I disagree. No'm for our second and final chapter today, we're going to talk with one

of these heroes, Dr Bill Nelson. As you mentioned, he's nationally recognized as a physician and scientist, and he specializes in treating and researching prostate cancer. In fact, he discovered the most common genome alteration in prostate cancer, which has led to more diagnostic tests for the disease. Talk about impressive. He's the director of the Sydney Kimmel Brands of Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins and he is also on the

Stand Up to Cancer Scientific Advisory Committee. So in our conversation with Dr Nelson, we dig into his work fighting all kinds of cancer and we talked about why the approach of Stand Up to Cancer is so unique and has already yielded so many promising therapies. Bill, let's talk about the model of Stand Up to Cancer and from a scientist perspective, how is it different and why in your view is it a positive thing? Well, I think that the thing that attracted so much of the scientific

and cancer research community initially was its ambition. These women had gotten together, as you know, and they wanted to do something bold, and they wanted to do something big.

And their thought was that if everyone could come together in dream teams we called them, in which case you had everybody who could help on a particular cancer problem, they could focus on this problem, get considerable investment of resources over a short period of time, that they could make a huge difference quickly, Dr Nelson, Bill, if I might before stand Up to Cancer, what did the world of cancer research look like, why was there this need

to create dream teams and collaborate. Well, you had very dedicated people trying to make an impact on the cancer field. They were very competitive, and some of that was good in trying to outsmart or be cleverer than cancer than one might compete with someone else working on the same type of thing. And he didn't share information, didn't share data until you delivered a publication into the medical literature. That often was months months after the discovery was made.

And I think what became clear around the time stand Up to Cancer as people were starting to work together, not just to not compete with each other, but we were starting to bring together areas of deep expertise uh medical oncology, structural biology, chemistry, cell biology, engineering, all these things, bringing more all together to ask much more impactful questions about what cancer is and how it might be better treated.

On one level, you were collaborating with different kinds of scientists and different kind of experts bringing their expertise together. But in terms of institutions and medical establishments and biotech firms, it was very very proprietary, wasn't it. Bill, Certainly in the biotechnology industries proprietary because they're trying to build a

product to outcompete the next company. But there was a lot of that ongoing, I think at our nations in the world's leading cancer center, so they could say we're the place that discovered this important thing. So it was very political in a way, very much so yes, and politics are everywhere to see that, Brian, and so initial I know a lot of the scientists were a little bit nervous about this whole new paradigm, thinking we're not going to share our valuable research, our blood, sweat and tears.

If we're at such and such a hospital or institution, we're not going to share it with the people, you know on the other side of the country. What was the reaction initially? Like, I think it had ripened a bit so that the idea was very timely, And I think you're right. I think innately, I think scientists were a little bit nervous. What am I gonna share? Well, I share a little bit, but not the most important

part or what have you. I think what started to happen though, is that some of the collaborative kinds of research we're getting answers that weren't that people just weren't getting when they're working on their own late at night and you know, in a dark laboratory. And I think people saw that this should work, although I think they were a little nervous about taking it on. I think that's a fair view. And so basically, what stand up set is you're not getting our money unless you work together,

unless you play nice. Well they did say that, and the other side was that, you know, it was very clear from the get go that the stand Up to Cancer enterprise reached the general public in very, very much broader and more important ways. And remember, all along we were concerned in all of cancer research that not enough of the cancer patients were participating in clinical trials and

the like. And here was a magic kind of a time where cancer researchers were going to come together, but the entertainment industry and the TV news industry was going to come together and tell everybody the story of cancer. So those two things together it was faded to work. And it has worked incredibly well. So after the initial resistance,

there was excitement. And I think my impression Bill is once the scientists started working together and collaborating and getting to know each other and sharing their results and tissue samples and all sorts of things. They felt incredibly energized by this, didn't they. Well, you've watched each year as we come to the Scientific Summit, and you watch the culture of how people interact the scientists, and I think

that's exactly right. I can think of two scientists from my own field cancer up in genetics, Peter Jones and Steve Bale, and they're a leader of a dream team. These were arch rivals throughout most of my career in science. They vacation together now so they not only begin to see things together and how they might work together, but the whole culture of science, I think has changed. And you watched it year to year coming to the Scientific Summing.

It's actually been a really moving thing to witness because I've always said, if two heads are better than one, ten heads are better than two, And why not pool your incredible science and hard work and intelligence intellect and just help patience instead of helping the scientists. Ego With all due respect, Bill, Yeah, no, at some point I hope that people leave some of their ego at the door.

We want them to have enough of an ego to be bold enough to have a new idea and build that idea up into something important if it's the answer, but other than that, it's just in the way. I agree. So, Bill, I want to ask you a few questions about cancer that may seem very obvious to you into Katie, but to civilians like me, I think your expertise will be very helpful. So I keep hearing a lot about immunotherapy,

and basically, here's what I know. Immunotherapy trains your body's immune system to attack the cancer, which it won't do on its own in many cases. Can you explain where immunotherapy is and why it's so important? Yeah, well, I think you You've got to beat on on the immune system. The immune system is remarkable. It's capable, generally of distinguishing threats of the body, whether they're bacteria or viruses or

fungi or somebody's kidney that's been transplanted into you. They can distinguish that from the normal cells in the body. And I think for a long time scientists wondered whether the immune system could also see cancer cells as different from normal cells. I think at this point we're pretty well convinced that they absolutely can. So the question then became, if the immune system can see the cancer recognize that

it's not normal. Why can't it mount an attack and destroy the cancer the way it would try and destroy, you know, bacteria or viruses or the like. And for some of them, it looks like the cancer is sneaky. It holds up what I think of as the talk to the hand response. The immune cell shows up and it holds it at bay. The importance of that is that that can be defeated with a new series of drugs. Are five of them now FDA approved called immune checkpoint

in immercial six. I guess um that stops that response, unleashes the immune system, and for many people, the immune system can destroy the cancer. It looks like it can keep it at bay for a very long time. We're beginning to wonder whether these people are cured. Truly remarkable, It is so exciting, and cancer is such a wildly vicious opponent. And I think Brian, for so long, even if you turbo charge the immune system, the cancer cells or something something within the cells or outside the cells

could figure out a way around it. Right to Bill's point, they would set up these blockades or his his metaphor the talk to the hand thing, but they can remove the blockades, turbo charge the immune system and let it do its job, and we're seeing some very exciting developments in this field of cancer research. When it comes to this really relatively new approach, which a lot of scientists

used to mock. Actually right, well, I think the people who worked on immano therapy for a long time were it wasn't working very well, and I think that many of their colleagues reminded them that on occasion. But yeah, now this these new immane checkpoint inhibitors are are just stunning,

and of course now the challenges. They work incredibly well for a fraction of the people with many different types of cancers that get treated, they don't work at all for some other folks, and we need to know why that's the case, because the what we assume is if we can figure out why, perhaps we can can energize the immune system and these people to work as effectively

it does in the others. You also have to be careful Bill right about turbocharging the immune system too much, because if the immune system Brian I always I love to talk about this stuff and Brian doesn't know a lot about it, But if the immune system is too powerful that, of course, can can have some very adverse

effects on the patient. The use of these immune checkpoint inhibitors does walk a tight rope of immunity a little bit, and when the immune system gets too repped up, as as Katie was saying, you get itis inflammation of in almost any organ you can name, whether it's colitis and the call and numinitis and the lungs. Those are some

of the more catastrophic ones. And so what's happened as the physicians learned to use these drugs better and better and more and more safely, they're far more attuned to minor side effects. You know, a little bit of a cough means a lot when you're on one of these drugs,

you get you evaluated very quickly. The thing that's exciting is it looks like you can slow down the autoimmune attack, the attack on the long or the colon or something reasonably effectively without undermining the effect on the cancer very much. And that's very promising. But that's how that that medicine of that field is shaping up for our listeners. Which are the cancers that are now most responsive to immunotherapies,

and which are the ones that have been the most challenging. Well, there's three to to think a lot about one or melanomas, and melanoma's the response rates are the highest. That the fraction of people with melanoma that benefit from immune checkpoint inhibited treatment is the highest. UH non small cell lung cancer. We call it one of the kinds of lung cancers respond extremely well. And the other one are cancers that arise in the sting of an inherited deficiency in DNA

mismatch APPARENTSIMES. That's a bunch of science gobbledegook to say there's an inherited syndrome where people develop cancers, often calling cancer, but some others as well, And the reason they do is that they get more and more acquired defects and genes.

Acquired defects and genes underlie cancer generally, but they get many many of them, and the immune system can see these cancers far more easily, it appears, and so taking down this checkpoint barrier looks like it unleashes the immune system. After these types of cancers, and these sample many, many different kinds of cancer types. Not to be self serving, but stand up to cancer is raised close to half

a billion. Yes, that's billion with a B, folks dollars, and much of that money goes to support scientific research and build It's a little different in terms of how you all and the Scientific Advisory Committee determine where that money goes. Can you explain that quickly for us? But we when we look for the dream teams, we have teams come together and and we help them even before they apply, and we say, don't leave anyone out who can be helpful. That's the secret to a great dream team.

They'll then propose a series of bold ideas, will review what they have written, will give them some advice on improving it, will invite them to come give an oral presentation in front of a whole committee of scientists, try and pick the ones that we think we should go after. And then after the funding is awarded, the Scientific Oversight Group continues to watch over these dream teams. We sit with them every six months and hear their progress. We

hear where they've gotten stuck. Um we help them um overcome obstacles. Early on, those obstacles were getting the culture right to work as a team. We had to do a lot of work there. That's not such an issue anymore. They tend to work pretty well as a team now, and then we bring back what they've learned report up to the the women who founded Stand Up to Cancer, so we can say this is where it's working, this

is what's not working. And what you all do with that information is you use it to tell a story and go raise more funds. There's also a time frame, which I think is really important because patients are desperate and I think you know people are desperate to come up with better treatments, if not a cure, but at least treatments that can keep the cancer at bay. So you tell these scientists they have to really put their foot on the gas pedal. Right, The support is for

three years. We want them to be in the clinic helping people. And if they're in the middle of a clinical trial and it's ongoing, the three year clock comes up, we'll continue that clinical trial, but we want them to, as you say, put the pedal to the metal, get the idea translated. We call it into a clinical trial so that people can benefit directly. Because time is of the essence for these cancer patients and their families. When

you've heard those three words, you have cancer. Time means completly different, meaning so and and when people hear that you have cancer. I mean, this may seem like a simple question, but what are the best next steps? How do you figure out? You know, where can I get the right treatment? How can I afford the right treatment? Should I listen to this advice? Should I get a second opinion? Etcetera? How can I make sure that my treatment is benefiting from the breakthroughs that are happening with

stand up to cancer? Well? I think I think anyone who's heard the words you have cancer as a diagnos with a diagnosis of cancer will work with their loved ones, They'll go seek medical help. I think the idea of getting a second opinion is just sound advice generally for anything anyone tells you. In medicine, one of the things that's really helpful is the where the clinical trials are. One thing about clinical research and cancer medicine is it's

innately the state of the art or better. That's what you get with a clinical trial. You also get a number of people second guessing the physicians decisions. You have the process of doing clinical research, you have a number of people watching to make sure the correct medical decisions have made. So people like me believe the highest quality cancer care is associated with cancer clinical trials. So looking

for are there opportunities to participate in clinical search? Are you a candidate to be part of a clinical trial? Is a good way to learn more about cancer and to start making your own decisions with the help of your physician. Getting back to how the research grants for are awarded, I know that one of our goals is to fund young researchers who have out of the box ideas,

because that's important for a number of reasons. First of all, there's a serious brain drain, right A lot of scientists come here and then they leave the country because they want to get more financial support. So we want to really encourage young scientists to stay in this country. And secondarily, some of these ideas are too unconventional to be funded

in more traditional ways. Correct, that's right. We have I think now forty six or maybe even fifty innovative research grant awardees that that's what we call these young researchers, and they're just they're just playing remarkable as as you know, the late Laura Ziskin had a particular place in her heart for this program. She got to know while she was alive, everyone who was in this program very personally would go to their posters at the summit, ask them

exactly what they're up to. And this is the best that we have in the country who show up and apply for these things, and uh, if there are any reflection on what the world of cancer is gonna look like in a few years, we're going to be in good shape. They're incredibly talent a group of people. It's very exciting and incredibly gratifying to see them. Brian, I I think they're sort of like the Brian Goldsmiths of the science world. Oh my god, that's not true. I

hope they're way better. I think of all the people with cancer I'm making Brian blush. Hey, Brian, let's talk a little to Bill about his background. What's a nice guy like you doing in a field like this. Give us a quick thumbnail sketch of your CV and why you decided to become a cancer scientist, and a damn good one at that, Bill, Thank you. I was not someone interested in a pre medical education. I went to college mostly to kick soccer balls and get an education.

I thought i'd kick soccer balls for a couple of years and be a lawyer or something. I didn't have very definitive plans. I managed to find myself without a job, and uh I went to work for someone who brought his kids to soccer camps and stuff. And uh I had majored in chemistry and sort of quantum mechanics because

I thought it was interesting. Didn't take any biology to Yale College up the street from my safety school, Safety School, and uh I can remember this person, Joe McGuire was the person ran the lab, and he was doing a clinical research on the first uses of retinoids and children with scaling skin disorders. Called it the o C so

they looked kind of funny. And the kids were, you know, twelve thirteen year olds, and uh same kind of kids would come to soccer camps and and I can remember scraping skin off of them to do stuff in the laboratory and and talking to them, and I was incredibly impressed with how much they knew about clinical research. They thought perhaps this new drug might help them, but it

was more likely not because they've tried things before. But even if it didn't work, they were pretty convinced that the next set of children with the same disorders would

be benefited. And I was very moved by that. And I can remember taking this one boy and his mom up to the laboratory, trying to show him what I was doing, giving my best lay explanation, and I looked at them at some point realized they had no earthly idea what I was talking about, but they cared deeply that this much activity was being expended on their behalf. And I remember at that point I said, sign me up. This is what I want to do. I want to

do something that brings new treatments to people. And uh remember Joe said, well then you're gonna have to go to medical school, which I didn't have the right curriculum for, but Johns Hopkins took a risk on me. I ended up and I was never going to do anything other than cance. So I think it's the one where you can make the biggest difference by coming up with something new. Well, we're glad you did so, thank you. You're a leader in what's known as translational research. Can you translate that

from me? Can you translate translational research? Yeah? No, So translational research is the the idea that you can make discoveries about biologic processes and the like, but to get them into a clinical setting, to translate them from science, if you will, to medicine. Um is what we think

of as translational research. So we try and take the best ideas that arise out of how cells work, how tissues work, and turn them into new opportunities to build approaches to treatment, early detection, screening, prevention, and like you know, one of the other exciting things about I think the world of cancer research right now is I think you mentioned it earlier, this confluence or convergence of all these

experts in different fields. And I think one of the most important game changers, it seems to me, and you correct me if I'm wrong, Bill, is data and how data is going to impact cancer research. Now, we hear that all the time, but can you explain in practical terms what data can do for you as a scientist and for patients everywhere? Well, there's all kinds of data that you could perhaps bring together to help people more

and more in medicine. But think of cancer for a second, right, All cancers are disorders of acquired defects and genes, which means we're talking DNA like c S, I on the television show three billion basis of DNA. That's the code of DNA in every cell in the body. Think about this, Human beings are nine nine point nine percent identical at

the DNA sequence level. And depending on who you're sitting next to, that may or may not be a scary thought was gonna say, But it does say there's a lot more in common between people then we might think politically. But that also means there's three million differences between any two individuals. We now have the ability to look at all the disorders, all the acquired defects in all the genes,

three billions of bases at a time, huge numbers. And this starts to fill up computers, over taxes, microprocessors and the like. And that's just to think about one particular

cancer case. What if we thought about all the breast cancer, can we classify it in a way that's perhaps different than before, which would say, this woman might not need chemotherapy after surgery something that's been in the news of it, or this woman might benefit from it, or this woman might benefit from trastuzumab percepttion, and this woman might not. As we're beginning to make these choices, we're using huge amounts of data computers in different ways, and then you're

write data science itself is what this is becoming. So it's it's it's really the not only the collection of data, in other words, the information about all these individual cases, but how it is organized and how scientists can compare uh situations and outcomes and then come up with better recommendations. Is that the right to think of it? Absolutely, that's

exactly right. And one of the challenges, of course is as there are electronic health records now throughout the country that most of us have somewhere, they have largely been launched, if you will, for building purposes, building in compliance, not to necessarily maintain the kind of information you'd love to use to see whether a treatment worked for everyone who've had this life experience and this DNA and put them all together. That's what's gonna happen. I think everyone's convinced.

But it's been a little bit slower than we'd like to see. But when it does happen, how will it change the face of cancer research and treatment? Oh? I think it's going to change it immensely. I think once you realize that although we're all very similar we're all different. No, two cancers are going to be exactly the life because

cancer is different in everyone's individual biology. That's right, And so we're gonna give the right treatment at the right time to the right person at the right does all that's going You're going to have the information at your fingertips to see sort of quantify, right, what treatment is the most efficacious. I always like to use word efficacious. I feel like it makes me sound smart. What do you think instead of effective? Yeah, it makes you sound

a little flowering. Why do you scided to say efficactions versus effect? I don't know. I'm stuck on whether or not it works. You know, can I can? I kind of related to that, which is, artificial intelligence has become such a buzz phrase um in the world in general and in science and particular. How is AI going to

change cancer research? Your treatment? Well, it is a perfect way to go with this big data type discussion, right, So, artificial intelligence particularly can seek and see patterns, and if the data are collected in a high quality quantitative way, as Katie was talking about, the better inputs are going to drive the better artificial intelligence algorithms and insights. So AI is basically just means it's like it can analyze the data and organize the data and interpret the data right,

that's right, and it sees patterns. So I think the first place you're gonna see big hits from AI and medicine are in looking at images like mammograms or CT scans as they call them, And the other is in helping pathologists look at slides, and I think they'll see these patterns. I suspect in the end that the AI tool will be one that works with a doctor rather

than replaces one. They'll drive the pathologists eyes to a particular part of the slide, saying in their artificial intelligence algorithm, this looks suspicious to us, of the pathologist will examine and says, yes, that's suspicious because it's a cancer, and you'll go And I think that's where you're gonna see the earliest hits. You're just gonna have many more tools

in your tool kit to help patients. Which is so exciting is somebody who's husband died of calling cancer in this span and of nine months, a new sister died of pancreatic cancer in less than two years. You know the idea of that being available is so moving and heartening to me though. It's incredible, and that wasn't that long ago. And so the idea that things are moving now finally the way they need to be, faster and faster helping more and more people, that's what we all want.

And you know, stand Up has funded a lot of breakthroughs and I just want to give you all a hat tip for that, um And and also it gives me great pride to know that we have helped facilitate some of these breakthroughs. Um. Can you just tick them off real quickly, Bill, Just in the last ten years have been incredible things that have happened as a result

of Stand Up to Cancer and these dream teams. Five new cancer treatments approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which means they're out there and people with cancer can benefit from them. New targeted treatments for breast cancer and ovarian cancer. A new chemotherapy like drug for pancreatic cancer. New bionic T cells called car T cells for leukemia. When they work, they work so well they make people very sex So there's new strategies to how stop that

particular side effect. All of this out there, all of this available today, uh. And ten years after standard to cancer started. Well, it's really exciting, but of course it's not enough. I can't tell you how many direct messages I get through Instagram or through other means with people just desperate bill for some kind of treatment, young people,

old people, all ages. And of course we just lost to I think American heroes from cancer, John McCain from glioblastoma I think nine years to the day after Teddy Kennedy died of the same thing, and Aretha Franklin from pancreatic cancer. So what do you if you had a magic wand what would you like to see happen? Obviously we'd like to cure all cancers and make them history. But what do you see having in the future to

help the people who, sadly and tragically are not being helped. Well, I think we do need to cure everyone with cancer, and I think we're going to slowly but surely get to there. And uh, and by that I don't mean too slowly. I think we're finally moving quickly enough that you're starting to see people benefit who historically you didn't think of as benefiting very much. But those two are ones that we just don't do well enough against brain tumors.

As you mentioned, whether it's Bo Biden or John McCain or Teddy Kennedy or anybody who knows somebody with a malignant brain tumor, we just don't do well enough against that cancer. We need to work harder and get some new insights pancreatic cancer. It's just starting to get a little bit brighter, I think, but this is still a cancer that's growing in incidents in our country as some

of other cancers are receding. So we're gonna have to struggle with some cancers that we're not doing very well with. Another more subtle channel into which I'm I'm hopeful about, is that you know, most cancers arise, like percent of them arising people over the age of sixty. The good news is that we have people aging into their sixties, seventies, I know, seventies and New twenty five or something. But we have people aging into their sixties and seventies and

a much more healthy states. So of course we're going to treat their cancer. But by the same token, we're gonna want different kinds of cancer treatments, ones that they can take, that's a pill that they can still continue to work or or whatnot. And the that's starting to happen to the cancer treatments just aren't is difficult to get through as they once were. And Bill, you're you're the director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.

You study all aspects of cancer. And we've been talking a lot about research and treatment, but can we just talk for a second about prevention. What do we know about things that those of us who are lucky enough not to have had cancer, at least not to have had cancer yet, what can we do to prevent cancer in terms of you know, diet or lifestyle or anything like that. Well, there's some straight off the bat that people should just do. One is a vaccination against the

human papalomavirus HPV. Vaccination. Everyone, boys, girls, everyone should be vaccinated. It stops at least three different kinds of cancers, and it definitely works, and people should get it done. Smoking cessation is one of the reasons lung cancer mortality has been declining. Immercifully, Smoking effects all cancers. Smoking affects many cancers. That's right, and there's no question we've got to stamp out smoking. Justice. It seems to be working better and

better in this country. We see smoking pop up in other parts of the globe. This is going to be a global challenge. And a diet and exercise. Having a healthier diet, healthier weight, and exercise probably is a general preventative agent for many kinds of cancers, particularly those that are common in the Western world. And those three things people can just do on their own. They can get those things done. There are increasingly some strategies using early detection.

Katie Kirk is shown us our own early detection strategies periodically on television. UM. But there's early detection kind of strategies and screening. And the other of course is there are some medicines out that help prevent breast cancer, and we need to discover more of those types of medicines that help prevent other cancers. Well, we talk about early detection, and now one of the exciting things that I've recently learned is on the horizon potentially very very early stages

new ways of detecting cancer. I was at this Michael Milken Institute panel over the weekend and they were talking about potentially working on a breathalyzer for lung cancer and coaling cancer and it Please Whenever I say these things, I worry that people will say, oh, we'll wait to get screen when they come up with the breathalyzer. Do

not wait, ladies and gentlemen. In fact, if you're forty five are over, the American Cancer Society just lower the age for a baseline screening colonoscopy or baseline screening for coaling can are tot so please please, please get screen. But it's it was so interesting to me. They were kind of comparing how dogs can sniff out like diabetes. Now it's so crazy, but so wild and cool too.

I mean, what do you think about that? Yes, I've heard a little bit about this from Jonathan Simon's at the Process Cancer Foundation works with Michael Milk, and he's my my roommates. I get to hear a lot about you guys. Must be really fun when you go out for a beer. Yeah, we're exactly not exciting even slightly like those two old guys in the Muppet television programs. But no, they can train dogs to sniff out of rioted diseases. These presumably are compounds, chemical compounds that are

very volatile dogs have. I forget what it is fifty two a hundred times the number of odorant receptors in their nose as human, so they can smell things better. And I think the answer is what exactly are they smelling? If they can sniff out cancer and other diseases, and can we develop ways to measure them? And then the next question is, as that gets you any earlier or any more specific than colonoscopy or a DNA based test or something like that, do you think that cancer will

one day soon? And if you could you even predict when be a be a disease of the past. Yeah, that's a great question. I think we'll be grappling with it for quite a while. And I think, uh, one of the reasons is that every time one cell divides to become two of those three billion base pairs, it makes a bunch of mistakes, thousands of them. Most of them get fixed, but about five to ten sneak through. And as long as that happens, then cancer will hopefully

be a rare disease. But I think we'll still still likely have cancer to deal with. Well, we are going to be dropping this episode, as they say in the BIZ, one day before our fifth biennial stand up to cancer telecasts that's every two years, and I'm very excited. I'm going to be going out to l a Brian. I hope he'll come this year with your lovely bride, Claire, and and we have a lot of big, boldface names like me Herschela Ali from Moonlight and Kathy Bates who

herself as a cancer survivor. Jennifer Garner, he's so cute. I'm actually excited to meet her. I guess I've met her, but I've seen her in a long time. Tony Hale, at Helms ken Jong, whose wife is a breast cancer survivor, Matthew McConaughey, Marley Mattlin who I love, Trevor Noah, we have Reese Witherspoon, Keith Irvin, David Spade, Brian Goldsmith, Katie Curic,

Bill Nelson. Actually, one of my favorite moments in our past telecast, Briant, is when we brought all the scientists on stage, because truly, and you've heard me say this time and time again, but me, me, my listeners haven't Cancer researchers and scientists are my heroes. They are so extraordinarily dedicated and committed and super smart, scary, smart, and I feel like they don't get enough accolades in our

current culture. So to be able to celebrate everything you all do is such a thrill for me, and I hope that we'll be able to celebrate you all this year as well. I'm sure we're going to be giving you a big round of applause. I don't think your band is playing Bill this year. And during our telecast, you do play in a in a band I do, and it's a it's a blast that no question tell

us about that is that a cancer band. Actually the woman who fronts the band is a breast cancer survivor, actually, and uh, and we were able to help her and uh, and she's very public about her case, talks about it, and it's it's wonderful to see. There's a lot of uh. I'm sure that's why so many musical artists contribute. There's a lot of people in the music business been very

deeply touched by cancer and want to get back. It's really no surprise, Bill, when you consider that one in three Americans will be diagnosed with some kind of cancer during the course of their lifetime. Times that so many people want to participate in stand up to cancer. And I also want to say how grateful we are to all the people who are so generous with their their time, attention, and energy, and that they're willing to spend Friday night,

uh talking about this disease. And this year we're going to be celebrating all the victories that we've seen. You know, sometimes this is such a heavy subject and it's so sad for so many people, but there are also so many survivors out there, and on this telecast, I think we're going to talk about the hope that all this research is ushering in for so many families, and it's

going to happen. It's it's happening more and more. One of the biggest groups growing in the United States now, our cancer survivors fourteen sixteen, eighteen million or whatever the last number I saw. It's great to see and I hope people will get involved. You know, when I lost my husband and also my sister, I found being proactive and carrying a out something bigger than yourself and wanting to help other people was so cathartic for me and in fact, John McCain I posted on my Instagram a

quote by John McCain. He said, if you find faults with our country, make it a better one. And then he goes on to ways that you can do things, and he says, our country will be better and you will be happier because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself. So when people ask me what can I do? I always say,

do anything. Make a small contribution of five dollars, get your kids to have elimonade stand you know, maybe get involved in a local cancer charity that gives support to patients who need it, who need even a drive to the doctor to get their chemo treatments. There's so many things that you can do, and I think the feeling of powerlessness that is so overwhelming during a cancer diagnosis or a cancer experience can be really offset by doing

something proactive. So for all of you listening out there who have been touched by cancer and affected by it or are dealing with it right now, UM, we would so welcome your involvement with Stand Up to Cancer, and you can go to our website and learn the myriad of ways that you can get involved. Can you tell him a little passionate about this? Well, as you know

and you mentioned this. I think all the physicians and scientists that work on cancer are passionate as well and cannot be more thankful to you and the women who run Stand Up to Cancer that both raise funds for the combat this disease and then increase the awareness of it so that everybody does better. It's it's it's really something. Well. I always say it's going to be the first line in my obituary, but hopefully that won't be written anytime,

reels Bill Nelson. I'm bad happy you note. Thank you so much, Bill again for everything you do, for coming here and being on our podcast. Brian, you want to say, by the Bill to Bill, really appreciate your taking the time and educating us about cancer and the future of cancer. And I'm more optimistic than I was before we had this conversation. Well, Suber, You're both are welcome and thank you for having me. That wraps things up for us

for today. Everyone. If you'd like to learn more about Stand Up to Cancer, or get involved, or even make a small contribution, please head to stand Up to Cancer dot org. Every couple of years around this time I make a contribution. I'm really glad that I have and I'd encourage everyone to do the same. Whether it's five dollars or five thousand dollars, you should give whatever you

can because I can't imagine a better cause. Thank you, Brian, and thanks as usual to our production team, Gianna Palmer, our producer, Nor Richie, our assistant producer, and Jared O'Connell, who mixes and engineers the show. And beth A mas is a rock star in her own right here here. Special thanks this week to Jon Asanti for his production help, as well as Andy Kristen's and Jordan Duffy for engineering.

And a big thank you this week to Kathleen lab my friend and colleague since nineteen Excuse me, I am so sorry. Kathleen and I not only went to the University of Virginia together, but she is a huge and important force behind Stand Up to Cancer and I feel so honored to be able to work with her after all these years. As always, a big thank you to Mark Phillips for our theme music. Brian and I are

the show's executive producers. For better or for worse, Remember we love hearing from you over at comments at correct podcast dot com. We'll take questions. Guest ideas and of course feedback. You can also leave us a message at nine two to four, four, six, three seven. I'm on social media a lot under Katie Kirk. By the way,

just follow me on Instagram. I'm a story make and full and Brian sends Twitter missives from the handle at Goldsmith b And if you've listened this far and you like the if one of you out there is listening this far, God help you, please know that we'd also appreciate it if you'd rate and review us on Apple Podcast. It helps more people to find the show. And don't forget to subscribe as well as always, thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.