Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/519582
t m c » p u l s e | j u n e 2 0 1 5 14 Q | MD Anderson has had many exciting and bold initiatives over the years. One was the branding cam- paign which is one of the most brilliant I've ever seen—striking through your name to drive home the concept of ending cancer. There's also the Moon Shots Program and the concept behind it. Can you talk a little bit about how those concepts came about? A | First, with respect to the marketing and the branding, those things only work if they're grounded in reality. You walk the hallways here and whether you talk to the valets, or our volunteers, or our neurosurgeons, or our Board of Visitors, everyone is truly focused on the mission. Everyone understands what we're doing—Making Cancer History—and we want to end cancer in Texas, the nation and the world. All that we do is focused on trying to achieve that mission. The credit for the concept of striking through CANCER and Making Cancer History goes to John Mendelsohn and his commu- nications team. The enduring nature of that brand and the true power that it carries rests on the fact that it's actually who we are. It's grounded in the reality of the conviction of all the 21,000 cancer-fighting champions of MD Anderson. In terms of the Moon Shots Program, this program is a reflection of the historic opportunities in the field. Throughout my career, I've had the tendency to look five to 10 years into the future and consider what's possible. We knew when we started the Human Cancer Genome Project in 2007, that we did not have the technol- ogy to sequence the tens of thousands of tumors needed. But we knew if we put our minds and will to a task, we would succeed—history has taught us that when you have a goal and you have ingenuity and determination, you will achieve that goal. You may not know exactly how to get there, but you will achieve that goal. We saw that with the Manhattan Project, we saw that with the moon shot; it was not possible in '62 to complete that goal, but we knew it was possible if we put our minds to the task. That's what Kennedy taught us, that's what George H.W. Bush taught us in 1989 with the Human Genome Project— again, a daunting task, seemingly impossible, but a decade and $3.6 billion later, we had the blueprint of life for humans. History has taught us if you have a goal and articulate a vision at the appropriate time, you can make a difference. Reflecting on the status of the field, it seemed to me there was a lot of prosecutable information. We had a lot of understanding of what caused cancer; we had technology that could detect cancer earlier, when the chance to cure it is greatest; and a lot of new clinical proof of concept—this was the game-changer, in my mind. I was seeing the early data that came out in 2009 and recognizing we were experienc- ing the game-changer on the therapy side. Those were early days, but again, looking ahead and thinking, 'Well, we now better understand the rules here. Can we build on this?' That conceptual maturity was coupled with the tech- nological prowess, and there were a couple of things there that were really exciting to me. One was the ability to sequence in real time, for a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time—that was a game-changer from a clinical standpoint. The imaging capabili- ties that we had, and the maturing of imaging physics, were game-changers as well, and they were there to better detect disease. The advances in serum proteomics, to detect serum proteins, potentially identify early biomarkers of disease, long before you can even see them by imaging. Things of that nature. If you look out ahead and ask, 'If we could detect cancers as early as stage 1 or 2, what kind of an impact would we have? Why aren't we getting there?' The opportunities there were obvious. Then, what happened with Watson, and artificial intelligence, and the cloud, and mobile technology; those were obvious, so you look at those and say, 'You're well positioned as a field to do things.' The second question you have to ask is, 'Are we organized to be able to do that? Is the government or our school system doing what's possible to prevent disease? Are hospitals and medical centers providing state-of- the-art, evidence-based care? Is the biotech industry using rigorous sci- ence to drive the best drugs forward?' and so on and so forth. If you look at the prosecutable information in hand today and the length of time that infor- mation has been around, you'd have to conclude that there are opportunities for optimization. So, we set out to build teams, infrastructure and resources to For the full interview, visit TMCNews.org accelerate the conversion of knowl- edge into clinical endpoints that would save lives. Q | How impactful is it to have MD Anderson, the largest cancer hospital in the world, on the campus of the Texas Medical Center? A | I think it's immeasurable. I don't think MD Anderson would be the pow- erhouse that it is without other world- class institutions that have made us better. To have the best medical school in Texas right next door in Baylor College of Medicine; to have one of the top children's hospitals in the country right next to us; to have UTHealth and its multiple institutions from bioinfor- matics to public health; to have great institutions like Rice and their gifted engineers and academicians; Memorial Hermann and its trauma care; the leg- acy of Texas Heart Institute, and Cooley and DeBakey and Methodist. We are great because we are the TMC. Any of those institutions benefit mightily by the success and well-being of the other institutions. It's a symbiotic relation- ship that has driven our collaboration, our competitiveness to be the best, and the facts speak for themselves. We are an engine for discovery and for delivery, the likes of which the world has never seen. Bobby Robbins' leadership is taking us to a new level of impact. Q | Do you have any closing thoughts? A | We're at a special point in the history of the field of medicine where we're very excited about the opportu- nities for science really changing the natural history of diseases like cancer and heart disease. The greatest chal- lenge and the biggest responsibility we have is to ensure this knowledge is delivered to those in need. It's not enough to care for folks who can come here and access the world's best care. We also have to work hard to spread our knowledge and deliver safe, effective care to others through our science and clinical care. The TMC, with its reach and its potential, has an opportunity to level disparities and solve diseases through prevention, early detection and definitive treatment. MD Anderson plays a very special and prominent role in that process when it comes to cancer, for the country and the world, and it's a responsibility we embrace. The greatest challenge and the biggest responsi- bility we have is to ensure this knowledge is delivered to those in need. It's not enough to care for folks who can come here and access the world's best care. We also have to work hard to spread our knowledge and deliver safe, effective care to others through our science and clinical care. (Credit: MD Anderson)