Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 237 - Marc Hedrick & Russell Bradley- Cerenome

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Episode 237 - Marc Hedrick & Russell Bradley- Cerenome · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:06
  Welcome back to the Bio Hub podcast by Avetics.
• 0:09
  Today I'm joined by two leaders working at the intersection of
• 0:13
  CNS oncology diagnostics, targeted radiotherapeutics and
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  brain cancer care. First, Mark Hedrick, CEO of
• 0:22
  Ceranome. Mark is a former academic
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  surgeon and long time life sciences entrepreneur who has
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  spent more than two decades developing new therapies and
• 0:30
  medical technologies through Ceranome.
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  He is focused on improving outcomes in CNS cancers through
• 0:36
  targeted radiotherapeutics, including Rayovic, and by
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  building a more integrated approach across diagnosis,
• 0:43
  treatment and monitoring. I'm also joined by Russell
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  Bradley who leads the CN side of the business at Ceranome.
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  Russell brings a deep background in diagnostics and life
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  sciences, including senior experience at Abbott Labs, and
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  it's helping advance the company's work and improving how
• 1:00
  CNS cancers are detected, monitored and understood.
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  In today's conversation, we're going to explore why CNS cancer
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  has been so difficult to treat, how targeted radiotherapeutics
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  could change the treatment landscape, where diagnostics fit
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  into the future of care, and what Serinome is building over
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  the next one or two years. Mark Russell, it's a pleasure to
• 1:20
  have you both with me today. Thanks, Ben.
• 1:22
  So Mark, I think, you know, to begin, we'll start with you.
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  You know, as I mentioned, you started as an academic surgeon
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  and over the last 20 years have been building therapies and and
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  Med tech platforms. What made CNS Cancer the problem
• 1:35
  that you wanted to build this company around?
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  Well, I knew a little bit about it as, as an academician, I was
• 1:42
  a craniofacial surgeon. So I operated around the, the,
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  the brain, not quite in it, but around it and took care of a lot
• 1:50
  of patients that had CNS or brain head and neck related
• 1:56
  issues. So I recognized the clinical
• 2:00
  need and then and then we as we began to think about where to
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  position the company for the, the long, the long term, it
• 2:11
  became very clear that there was an emerging epidemic in central
• 2:16
  nervous system cancer, largely driven by better systemic
• 2:21
  therapies for common cancers like breast cancer and Melanoma
• 2:24
  and lung cancer. And that we had an opportunity
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  to get ahead of that and then bring together a
• 2:32
  multidisciplinary multimodal approach to the diagnosis,
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  treatment and the analytics related to that.
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  So we began a series of acquisitions and development
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  programs to lead to where we are today as Ferno.
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  Yeah, exciting. And Russell, just to sort of go
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  through your background as well, you know, that's it's more on
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  the diagnostic side, you know, life science tools, commercial
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  scaling, what drew you into CNS oncology and and what really
• 3:01
  convinced you that CN side could become more than just another
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  diagnostic test? I'd like to think maybe CNS
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  oncology found me in some respects because, you know, I, I
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  retired from Abbott, really enjoyed my career in diagnostics
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  and life science. And I was always kind of
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  fascinated with the idea of therapeutics and diagnostics
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  being brought to bear on improving patient outcomes.
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  And you know, this started 20 years ago, which has called
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  personalized medicine back then, but was involved in a couple of
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  technologies that really bridged that gap that could help
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  therapeutics companies really target their therapies.
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  And it was really perplexed why diagnostics didn't kind of
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  ascend and take its rightful place at the table.
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  You know, it was a high value tool and was really pleased to
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  see our precision oncology in particular emerge and the CNS
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  itself being kind of the last frontier.
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  I would say that the really flippant answer to your question
• 4:02
  is that Mark convinced me that CNS oncology was was the right
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  place to focus. But I, I think the combination
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  of the compelling patient story in this case, you know, for me,
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  the more I learned about these patients with CNS cancers and
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  metastases in particular, the more I felt that they deserved
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  better tools and, and to bend the curve, the bend the
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  outcomes. And I think as I looked more at
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  the, the CN side diagnostic technology and, and with some
• 4:33
  help from some physicians and due diligence, really became
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  convinced that this was something special that deserved
• 4:39
  to be commercialised. And they put all those pieces
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  together for me to, to hold my interest and make me feel like
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  there was a, a real sense of purpose here.
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  So who's really happy to have the opportunity to work with
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  Mark and the team here to to bring this to market and to have
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  an impact? Yeah.
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  And as, as an organization, you, you've recently gone through a
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  little bit of an identity shift, right?
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  So you've, you've moved towards the Seranome name.
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  What What does this name really capture about the company's
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  future and what you're building towards?
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  Perhaps I'll I'll take that. So, you know, put very simply,
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  Seranome means brain and knowledge.
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  They could genomics and cerebellum, cerebrum.
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  So pretty simplistically that's what the name means, which
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  perfectly captures what we're trying to do.
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  We're focused on the central nervous system and we're focused
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  on really the multidisciplinary development of ways to improve
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  outcomes. The, the company really advanced
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  beyond its prior name to a point where what, the way we were
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  describing ourselves, if you branding, if you will, ourselves
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  was, was really out of sync with what the, the company was doing.
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  And so then the question became, do we continue or do we rebrand?
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  And it became very clear to us that rebranding was the the way
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  to go and, and and to, to where the company aspires to be, not
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  where it was. Let's let's delve into CNS
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  cancers in a little bit more detail.
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  I mean, why have they been sort of so difficult to change the
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  outcomes in CNS cancers over the last several decades?
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  I mean, you know, is the the core challenge anatomy?
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  Is it biology, is it drug delivery, diagnostics, market
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  fragmentation? Or is it really a combination of
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  all of those factors into one? Yeah, it's a, it's a yes to that
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  question. It's all of the above.
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  And and, and then your question sort of, you know, gave a
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  preview of what the the answer is.
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  But the, the I think that the context is important and that is
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  that outcomes for CNS patients have not kept up with outcomes
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  and non CNS cancers for the last 50 years.
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  So very small number of approvals and you know, a lot of
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  failed clinical development programs.
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  It's a, it's a systems disease. And I think our, our recognition
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  early on, you know, many years ago is that to make material
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  improvements in survival, you have to think about it as a
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  system disease. And you can't think about
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  developing something that solves 1 aspect of the system.
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  And you mentioned a number of those and there, there are a
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  number of number, number of other issues that sort of feed
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  into that, but you have to look holistically.
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  And then that led us to thinking, OK, well, therapeutics
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  is part of it, but we're constrained by the poor
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  diagnostics in the field. And so we felt like we needed to
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  solve that. At the same time, we're solving
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  the therapeutic side of the coin, the coin.
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  Yeah. I mean that that segues us quite
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  nicely into CN side. And you know, essentially,
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  Russell, how, how do you change what clinicians can see in the
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  CSF compared with standard cytology because that that's
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  going to be a massive differentiating factor.
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  Yeah, absolutely is. And I think that's the most
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  immediate impact is, you know, the standard of care right now,
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  which is CSF cytology has been well documented as not being
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  sensitive enough. And that you know that that
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  detection of cells using cytology is is really definitive
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  for for one type of metastatic CNS cancer which has left a
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  meningeal disease. So, so if you've got a test that
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  it's very specific but not very sensitive, it doesn't, it
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  doesn't, it doesn't really add clarity and begin that
• 8:52
  therapeutic journey for that patient, right.
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  And so the thesis was and, and clearly the data we have shows
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  that C inside is, is significantly more sensitive on.
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  So on that first specimen, we we can detect very low numbers of
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  tumor cells and we can add clarity to that physician and
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  that, that, that patient and we can get that that patient on a
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  therapeutic trajectory sooner. And that's how you impact our
• 9:21
  overall survival and and outcomes.
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  Yeah. So you know, we, we've got a
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  technology that fills that gap. It's, it's a significant
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  clinical gap in, in the diagnosis of these patients.
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  And our technology fills that quite nicely.
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  And that begins a cascade of, of things that are all beneficial
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  not just to the patient, but to, to the economics of this
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  situation as well. So, you know, as a diagnostic
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  executive, I learned a long time ago that if you can put together
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  a better diagnostic performance, like perform the testing
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  performance of the diagnostic and you can impact patient
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  outcome that way. And you can do it in a way that
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  saves the healthcare system economically.
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  That's a, that's a winner right there.
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  So you know, we've got the data now.
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  We did a study last year that we published this year that shows
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  that the presence of a more sensitive diagnostic in this in
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  this disease has a pretty dramatic impact on not only
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  overall outcomes, but the cost of how to treat these patients,
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  including, you know, an overall reduction of about 40% in the
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  cost of treating them in the last six months of life.
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  Yeah. So you know that that was part
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  of the reason why I was compelled to do this.
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  I think all the all the things that need to be in place for
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  success, including being part of a therapeutic company and having
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  a unique perspective that way, and bringing these two things to
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  bear in the single company, which is very rare,
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  unfortunately. Yeah.
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  In our industry, there's not many examples of companies that
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  bring all the tools together in one place.
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  Yeah. And that, that that ability to
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  really capture and characterise, you know, extremely rare cells,
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  but potentially down to a single malignant cell within a sample.
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  How does that change diagnosis? How does it change monitoring
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  and and really the treatment decision making for patients?
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  Yeah. So it does it impacts that
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  initial diagnostic transaction because you can add clarity and
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  you can be definitive about the diagnosis sooner in the in the
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  disease course. But you raise a really important
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  question and one of the things about C inside that allows it to
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  to be even more of a valuable tool.
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  You know, you think about diagnostics generally, it's
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  typically a diagnostic test. Is it, is it really
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  transactional? Yeah.
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  Your test is done on a body fluid or a piece of tissue.
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  Results are generated, they're provided to the physician and
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  that's in a lot of cases that's the end of the story, right?
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  The the physician then takes that, puts it together with
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  their clinical picture and then comes up with a diagnosis and
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  then a treatment plan. The thing about CN side is that
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  we've got this ability to, to actually to, to stand alongside
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  the physician and continually provide them information and
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  monitor the effectiveness of their treatment strategy.
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  So, you know, one of the things that we have is not only the
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  ability to to detect and capture these cells of very low numbers,
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  but we can then monitor the effectiveness of the treatment,
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  provide the data to the physician to really show whether
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  their approach is is being effective.
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  Yeah. So there's an episodic component
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  to the testing which can, can really help, I could say course
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  change. You know, if you put together a
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  strategy for, for treating a patient, you're not getting the
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  kind of response you expect, then you can, you can take a
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  look at what are the other options and, and do that, you
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  know, quickly enough to impact the quality of life and the
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  outcome of the patient. So we we can really do both by
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  by being able to capture the cells and to enumerate them over
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  the the course of the disease. Yeah.
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  What, what, what does, what does that ideal CN side report really
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  look like? What?
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  What does it give to a treating oncologist or neuro oncologist?
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  Yes. So we, we start off with the
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  basics really, you know, did we detect a tumor cell in the CSF
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  in the cerebral spinal fluid specimen?
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  And that's where the beginning of the clarity comes from.
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  You know, once you find that cell, then that adds the, the,
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  the question that a physician might have if they're suspecting
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  that there's a metastatic process, we can say, well, yes,
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  we've found cells, but we also give them a baseline tumor
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  burden. So we can say how many cells we
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  found, you know, per per unit of cerebral spinal fluid.
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  So that, that begins that, that baseline of here's where we're
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  starting this journey, you know, so ideally you would give them
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  those initially. And we, we do that and then you
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  start looking at, well, how can we really provide the physician
• 14:05
  with a full set of tools to, to determine the best therapeutic
• 14:10
  strategy here? And that's when we start looking
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  at some of the assays to characterize the tumor, confirm
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  that, you know, the the tumor is what what's expected if there
• 14:21
  was a primary tumor diagnosed some other part of the body and
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  also confirm that that that cell and that that tumor might be
• 14:31
  susceptible to the same kinds of therapeutics.
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  Yeah, to be able to treat the the patient.
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  So the ideal report really has all those elements.
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  It's yeah, removing the doubt, providing clarity to the
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  physician, providing a baseline for the disease and then
• 14:48
  developing, I would say some, some biomarkers to to to help
• 14:53
  the physician come up with a therapeutic strategy for that
• 14:56
  patient that's tailored. You know, you think about
• 14:57
  precision oncology, that's really what we're talking about.
• 15:01
  Yeah, and I mean like if if you're able to achieve all of
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  those, it's it's genuinely game changing, right.
• 15:06
  Absolutely. And, and, and you can see the
• 15:08
  data, yeah, the, the amount, the, the impacts that just
• 15:12
  having these kinds of tools available in tumours, in solid
• 15:15
  tumours already has changed the has changed the paradigm
• 15:20
  dramatically for these patients. You know, we're really managing
• 15:23
  cancer in a lot of cases now more like a chronic disease, you
• 15:28
  know, where we, we test, we diagnose and, and then we
• 15:31
  monitor and we change our therapies based on what we're
• 15:34
  seeing. So yeah, I mean, it's the same
• 15:37
  for CSFI. Just think that Ceranome is
• 15:40
  really uniquely positioned to bring all that together against
• 15:43
  one particular disease in a very definite vertical.
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  So that's what for me, that's really exciting to be part of
• 15:50
  the diagnostics. But I really enjoy also working
• 15:54
  with Mike and the team on, on, you know, looking at the data
• 15:57
  that we get from our therapeutic trials too.
• 15:59
  And yeah, turning over to that Mark, let's let's shift focus to
• 16:02
  to rayobic. What, what, what's the core
• 16:05
  therapeutic concept behind targeted radiotherapeutics and
• 16:08
  CNS cancer and what, why is that approach, you know, particularly
• 16:11
  relevant for tumors focused within the CNS?
• 16:15
  So I think just an important point to emphasize, and that is
• 16:24
  if you look across all CNS cancers and ask what's been
• 16:32
  what's been the best seat in a bad movie, what's the thing that
• 16:35
  has worked the best? And in these patients, even
• 16:39
  though it's not great and as I mentioned, these patients
• 16:41
  generally don't do well, but what what has worked the best
• 16:45
  and that's been radiation. The problem with radiation
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  though, is that the amount of radiation, the dose that's
• 16:52
  delivered to the tumor in other words, is limited by a number of
• 16:56
  factors. So five years ago we made the
• 17:01
  determination that if we can deliver more radiation in a
• 17:05
  targeted way, in other words higher dose to the tumor with
• 17:09
  minimal radiation delivered to normal brain and normal normal
• 17:13
  tissues that we have a chance at improving outcomes and improving
• 17:18
  tumor control. And that's indeed what Rayobic
• 17:21
  has shown the ability to do in early to mid stage trials.
• 17:25
  Deliver 10 to 20 times the amount of radiation that can be
• 17:30
  delivered by you know the best that medicine has to offer
• 17:33
  today, which is some form of external beam radiation.
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  And so we found that a feasibility we can deliver that
• 17:41
  amount of radiation and we haven't seen an upside.
• 17:43
  And that's an important point that even though we're
• 17:45
  delivering, you know, call it 10 to 20 times the amount of
• 17:48
  radiation that you can typically give, we haven't found an upper
• 17:51
  threshold of safety yet. We're still probing the limits.
• 17:56
  And we've also shown that for every incremental increase in
• 18:00
  radiation delivered at least for figlioblastoma and use that as
• 18:04
  sort of a model that for each incremental increase in
• 18:08
  radiation you can get a direct improvement in survival.
• 18:11
  So we haven't met, we haven't reached a delivery safety
• 18:15
  threshold and we've yet to reach an efficacy threshold in our
• 18:19
  studies. So we think radiate targeted
• 18:21
  radiation is the the best get one bet to place and a central
• 18:28
  nervous system cancer you would bet on targeted radiation.
• 18:33
  And I mean, that's been one of the biggest historical issues,
• 18:35
  right? It's getting enough therapeutic
• 18:39
  intensity into the tumour without creating that
• 18:42
  unacceptable toxicity. How do you really aim to create
• 18:46
  and change that balance with Rehobic?
• 18:50
  So we referring back to our, our prior conversation about the
• 18:56
  system's nature of central nervous system cancers.
• 18:59
  A key part of that system is the blood brain barrier that is
• 19:04
  there to be a protective barrier for bad things getting into the
• 19:09
  brain. But once something gets into the
• 19:11
  brain, it, it, it Shields the body's normal mechanisms for
• 19:16
  tumor surveillance and, and you know, immune activity to, to the
• 19:22
  tumor. So the, the key part of what
• 19:26
  we're doing in a systems approach to therapeutics is to
• 19:30
  circumvent the blood brain barrier by any means you know
• 19:34
  necessary to deliver maximum amounts of drug activity to the
• 19:40
  tumor and only the tumor. And so the we've solved that in
• 19:44
  two different ways for lepto meningeal cancer, which is
• 19:48
  cancer essentially of the lining of the, of the cerebral spinal
• 19:52
  fluid space. And it's a, it's a metastatic
• 19:56
  complication that's increasingly common.
• 19:59
  Autopsy studies suggest it's maybe 250 to 400,000 patients
• 20:04
  per year will have liptom and angio cancer.
• 20:08
  We can use something that's commonly used called a
• 20:11
  ventricular access device, also known as an Amaya reservoir.
• 20:16
  To get past the blood brain barrier, deliver the radiation
• 20:20
  essentially in a targeted way to that the compartment that
• 20:24
  contains the tumor. And then for non CSF related
• 20:29
  tumors, tumors of the brain substance itself, there's
• 20:33
  something called convection enhanced delivery, which has
• 20:35
  been around for about 30 years, was developed at the NIH.
• 20:39
  There are commercial systems, commercial navigation systems
• 20:43
  for the CNS catheters and other related software and technology
• 20:50
  that allows us to put up to five or more catheters in and around
• 20:55
  the tumor in a very scripted manner and deliver the radiation
• 20:59
  directly to the the tumor over the course of a few hours.
• 21:02
  And then the catheters come out, patient goes home and that's it,
• 21:06
  they're treated. So that's a really it's, it's
• 21:08
  part of the system's nature of the disease and our systems
• 21:13
  approach to trying to solve the the disease and.
• 21:18
  I guess you know that you know, each side of the business on its
• 21:22
  own is is sounding as though it is going to be beneficial for
• 21:26
  patients should should everything go right.
• 21:29
  And I guess the real upside that you have is the combination of
• 21:31
  the two, you know, why is that so important within CNS
• 21:34
  oncology? What what is it that it can
• 21:38
  achieve that stand alone diagnostics or stand alone
• 21:42
  therapeutics wouldn't be able to do?
• 21:46
  So the, you know, it's sort of the nature of the, of the, the
• 21:49
  industry, which is generally the, the invention is the
• 21:56
  compound and the compound can have activity across a number of
• 22:03
  particular indications. And then so the development
• 22:06
  program is often times geared to figuring out, OK, what you know,
• 22:10
  what tumor type, what, what mechanism is it played a
• 22:15
  particular disease state. And then, you know, determine
• 22:18
  whether it has appropriate safety profile and, and efficacy
• 22:23
  and points that you can show an effect and improve outcomes.
• 22:26
  So it's a little bit of a shotgun approach, but that's,
• 22:29
  that's, that's sort of standard fare.
• 22:31
  I think for us, it's more about, OK, we know what the, we know
• 22:34
  what the tumors are. We know what the system's
• 22:37
  limitations are. We know that, that the
• 22:42
  diagnostic information is directly relevant to what we do
• 22:47
  therapeutically. And to give you a, a, you know,
• 22:50
  a very good illustration of that, in my view, it's for
• 22:53
  Leptoma meningeal cancer. So it's increasingly common
• 22:57
  problem. These are common cancers like
• 23:00
  breast cancer that end up in the cerebral spinal fluid.
• 23:04
  Those are not clonal necessarily clonal replicates in the brain
• 23:09
  of what originally developed in the breast.
• 23:11
  There's something called genetic drift in these patients.
• 23:14
  So you may have a genetically distinct tumor in the brain, but
• 23:18
  probably is is the one of the drivers for it ending up in the
• 23:23
  brain actually. But you have to treat it as a
• 23:25
  separate disease. And it you can't, you can't
• 23:27
  necessarily treat the CNS with the same drug that worked in the
• 23:31
  breast or or for a Melanoma patient in the skin.
• 23:34
  So you really do have to think sort of about the end organ and
• 23:38
  then work backwards rather than start with the therapy and work
• 23:41
  forwards. I guess if we look forward, you
• 23:44
  know what, what realistically is going to be the clearest proof
• 23:47
  of concept for you guys over the next 1224 months that the
• 23:52
  Serinome isn't just developing a diagnostic and a therapeutic
• 23:55
  separately, but you're, you're really building a truly
• 23:58
  integrated CNS oncology platform that that you can build from as
• 24:02
  well. So maybe I'll just take take
• 24:05
  that generally and invite Russ into the conversation.
• 24:08
  But first of all, our diagnostic platform is already proven.
• 24:16
  There been 11,000 commercial tests.
• 24:18
  We have broad based reimbursement.
• 24:21
  Medicare is coming very soon. We have health economics outcome
• 24:27
  research that supports its use and that's commercial and it's
• 24:30
  growing and essentially that's proven.
• 24:33
  The question is, you know, how quickly and broadly will it it
• 24:36
  scale? But it becomes more of an
• 24:38
  execution issue than it is a, a scientific or proof of of
• 24:42
  concept issue. But that that therapeutic
• 24:47
  development program is predicated in part on having the
• 24:52
  appropriate endpoints. We'll see inside is not just a
• 24:54
  diagnostic, it's actually a therapeutic endpoint.
• 24:57
  For example, the the number of tumor cells in the CSF is
• 25:01
  actually prognostic and there's increasingly strong data showing
• 25:06
  not only is it prognostic, but it correlates with outcomes.
• 25:10
  In other words, reducing the tumor cell burden will improve
• 25:13
  the outcomes for particular patients.
• 25:15
  So we can use, we could use one of our novel assays as a
• 25:20
  surrogate endpoint. We actually had discussions with
• 25:23
  the FDA about how to how to move that forward more broadly.
• 25:27
  So that's, that's sort of one level of integration between
• 25:30
  diagnostics and therapeutics. But that, that kind of brings me
• 25:34
  to the third leg of the the Ferranom stool and that's
• 25:37
  advanced data analytics. Because of, because of the
• 25:42
  nature of the integration and the, the, the sheer volume of
• 25:46
  data that we have on both sides of the business, we've opted to
• 25:51
  be a very AI forward company. In effect, build a native AI
• 25:55
  corporate operating system that's built around both of
• 25:58
  those businesses that will span across the businesses and then
• 26:03
  allow us to do advanced data analytics from the beginning,
• 26:06
  not both on, but fully developed for us with our unique data
• 26:12
  sets. Yeah, Russ, anything that you
• 26:14
  want to want to add on top of that?
• 26:17
  Yes, Mike did a great job of talking about the, you know the
• 26:21
  go forward. I think you know, just even
• 26:24
  day-to-day already there's, there's real evidence of
• 26:29
  synergies. And I will just give you one
• 26:30
  example. We were just at a conference
• 26:32
  last week for neuro oncologists and you know, one of the things
• 26:37
  we have the benefit of is just the accounts that are using CN
• 26:41
  side provide incredible surveillance for us.
• 26:44
  And if you think about things like partnerships for clinical
• 26:49
  trial sites, relationships with key opinion leaders, having 2,
• 26:54
  the two the two sides of the business plus the data analytics
• 26:58
  together just facilitates that. So it gives you the opportunity
• 27:03
  to build that, that faculty of, of, you know, the, the coalition
• 27:08
  of the willing, if you like to that also to share the vision
• 27:12
  and the, the value of wanting to impact outcomes.
• 27:16
  And we've now got two sides of the business that we can, we can
• 27:19
  bring into that and, and each side helps the other.
• 27:23
  But I think you're looking at outcomes and building this this
• 27:27
  database of very unique data that we'll have and then
• 27:31
  starting to look for insights. I don't know if it'll be 18 to
• 27:34
  24 months, but the whole idea here is that we go from an
• 27:40
  indispensable partner and tool provider to helping physicians
• 27:44
  be able to predict things. And I think that data analytics
• 27:48
  bit when we start really putting it all together and starting to
• 27:53
  ask some really high value questions about this disease,
• 27:57
  how can we bring that and, and interfere as a, as a predictor
• 28:02
  of outcomes and, and allow the physicians to really focus on
• 28:06
  the best strategies. I think it's conceptually it's
• 28:08
  powerful. There's a lot of work to do to
• 28:11
  be able to realise it, but I think we're in a great position
• 28:13
  to do that. Yeah, for sure.
• 28:16
  Just just to wrap things up here then guys, I'll ask the the the
• 28:19
  final question to both of you here.
• 28:21
  If either of you could have dinner with any scientist or
• 28:25
  innovator, past or present, who would it be and why?
• 28:28
  Russ, that's right up your alley.
• 28:30
  You're more the philosopher than I am.
• 28:35
  Well, Mark, thanks for thanks for your confidence.
• 28:38
  I wasn't very tempted to to say, you know, Velvet Einstein,
• 28:42
  right, But I I figure, well, that's probably the a pretty
• 28:45
  typical answer, although that would be fascinating.
• 28:48
  Try, try out, try out my German. That was pretty, pretty, pretty
• 28:52
  minimal. You know, it's, it's, it comes
• 28:55
  down to I, I had the good fortune to have dinner with one
• 28:58
  of Australia's Nobel laureates many years ago.
• 29:02
  There's only eight, I think in Australia that have won for
• 29:05
  Physiology and medicine. And I had dinner with Peter
• 29:09
  Doherty in San Diego, which was a real privilege.
• 29:13
  And, and I had lunch with the guy that became a Nobel laureate
• 29:16
  in Berkeley and his name was Jim Allison, James Allison, who was
• 29:21
  the guy that did a lot of that early work on checkpoint
• 29:23
  inhibitors that became, you know, a therapeutic that now is,
• 29:27
  you know, one of the major impactful therapeutics.
• 29:30
  So I, I would say now that I'm in Houston, we've got the James
• 29:33
  Allison Institute just behind me at MD Anderson.
• 29:38
  I'd love to, to catch up with Jim Allison again, but it's been
• 29:41
  30 years since I had lunch with him in Berkeley.
• 29:42
  He was working on these, these early checkpoint inhibitors,
• 29:46
  immune response back then, very academic.
• 29:50
  And now, of course, he's a Nobel laureate.
• 29:53
  He's got an institute named after him right behind me.
• 29:56
  I think it'd be great to do full circle and just catch up with
• 29:58
  him and say, hey, how's it been for the last 30 years?
• 30:02
  Yeah, for sure that'd. Be great, mark anyone on your
• 30:05
  mind or. I, I probably would tend to go
• 30:09
  for entertainment rather than maybe the, the, the scientific
• 30:15
  credibility. But I think probably the best
• 30:17
  combination is Richard Feynman, who gets somebody that can play
• 30:20
  the bongo drums and talk about quantum mechanics.
• 30:24
  I think that would be, that'd be, that'd be a great evening.
• 30:27
  Yeah. For sure.
• 30:29
  No, I'll, I'll come along to that one.
• 30:34
  Well, it's been been a pleasure to have you both on.
• 30:36
  Really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for joining me.
• 30:39
  Thanks, Ben. I really enjoyed it.
• 30:41
  Yeah. No worries and look, thanks for
• 30:43
  everyone else for tuning in. Make sure you stay tuned for any
• 30:46
  future episodes like and subscribe and we will be back
• 30:50
  shortly. Cheers.