"The TED talk is an appetizer. Here is the next course."

In my short 12 minute TED talk, I gave an overview of the following topics:

• the 3 most exciting revolution in cancer diagnostics and therapeutics

• promise and potential impact of early detection

• the top 3 current best practices in cancer diagnostics

• overview of our liquid biopsy technology

• latest clinical results in lung cancer

• future outlook of cancer care

While I tried my best to give the most succinct, concise, and engaging talk, covering the essentials, there is obviously a lot more to say.

Therefore, I have created a 52-page ebook that includes information I was not able to cover in the talk. This starts to flesh out some of the topics above.

To celebrate the TED talk being featured on TED.com, the full 52-page ebook is available for FREE until end of August 2017. 

To download, click on the button below.

Here is a synopsis:

Chapter 1: Introduction

• According to the World Health Organization, there was approximately 14 million new cases in 2012, and was responsible for 8.8 million deaths in 2015 - making it the second leading cause of death globally and one of the leading causes of morbidity worldwide. 
• According to the American Cancer Society, cancer will affect 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women in the United States. Globally, The number of new cases is expected to rise by about 70% over the next 2 decades.
• EXPANSION: We will provide an overview of the top contributors to cancer, including environmental and genetic causes, as well as the top prevention strategies and screening methods.

Chapter 2: Cancer Genomics

• One of the most exciting developments is cancer genomics, which is the mapping of the genetic changes associated with cancer.
• I was part of the team at Johns Hopkins that performed the first ever genome-wide sequencing of cancers. We sequenced breast and colorectal cancers and published in Science in 2006 and 2007.
• Large whole-wide initiatives now study cancer genomics lead by the International Cancer Genomics Consortium with 89 projects in 17 countries.
• EXPANSION: What has cancer genomics taught us? Which cancers can be more easily targeted due to this genomic data? How can we catch cancers early due to this data?

Chapter 3: Precision Medicine

• Precision (or personalized) medicine is giving the right drug to the right patient at the right time at the right dose.
• Targeted therapies: drugs that focus on genetic changes that is only present in the cancer and not in the patient's normal tissue.
• EXPANSION: What are all the targeted therapies available today? What are the ones forthcoming? Which diseases do these target?
• EXPANSION: New FDA approved therapy that focused not on the type of cancer, but solely on genetic alteration

Chapter 4: Immunotherapy

• Immunotherapy is taking advantage of the body's own immune system in the fight against cancer. It is one of the most promising and exciting new areas today.
• EXPANSION: Types of immunotherapy include:
  • Checkpoint Inhibitors: Drugs that inactivate the off switch of the immune system, effectively turning it back on. For select indications, now FDA approved.
  • CAR T-Cell Therapy (Adoptive cell transfer): Engineering patient's own immune cells to attack cancer.
  • Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines: Removing immune cells, such as antigen-presenting cells (APCs) from the patient, activated and expanded, and re-infused into the patient.
  • Cytokines: Proteins that help mediate and regulate immune responses, inflammation, and hematopoiesis, including interferons (INFs), interleukins (ILs), and  hematopoietic growth factors.
  • Others include monoclonal antibodies and BCG.

Chapter 5: Why Drugs Fail

• In a study by researchers at Harvard and MIT, patient's melanoma tumor was sequenced to reveal that it harbored the V600E mutation in the BRAF gene. A targeted therapy called vemurafenib was given with astonishing results. However, the tumor developed a mutation in MEK1 and the drug was no longer effective.
• EXPANSION: What are the targeted therapies available for different cancer types? What are the known resistance markers? Examples include EGFR targeted therapies for non-small cell lung cancer such as erlotinib (Tarceva) and gefitinib (Iressa). Resistance markers include T790M and C797S.

Chapter 6: How Can Early Detection Save Lives?

• In invasive epithelial ovarian cancers, survival rate at five is dramatically different at stage 1 (92%) vs stage 4 (17%) according to the National Cancer Institute, SEER Database.
• EXPANSION: Finding and treating cancer at an early stage can save lives (below from Cancer Research UK).

  • Bowel cancer: > 90% of bowel cancer patients will survive the disease for more than 5 years if diagnosed at the earliest stage.

  • Breast cancer: >90% of women diagnosed with breast cancer at the earliest stage survive their disease for at least 5 years compared to around 15% for women diagnosed with the most advanced stage of disease.

  • Lung cancer: Around 70% of lung cancer patients will survive for at least a year if diagnosed at the earliest stage compared to around 14% for people diagnosed with the most advanced stage of disease.

To celebrate the TED talk being featured on TED.com, the full 52-page ebook is available for FREE until end of August 2017. 

To download, click on the button below.