David B. Agus M.D.
The Catalyst
Ideas with a spark, energy, range and the ability to start things.
David B. Agus reads as The Catalyst because he turns complex cancer biology into movements rather than monographs. Co-founding the USC Norris Convergent Science Institute, writing bestselling books that reshaped public understanding of preventive health, and advising heads of state, he consistently converts medical insight into collective action.
“We are a technology application institute, so we develop drugs. We now have a large AI group that can design molecules targeting areas of cancer. So we're designing a molecule that hits part of the prostate cancer signaling cascade. To block it, that'll go into the clinic next year. We have a breast cancer molecule that we made with AI.”
“So there's no question that indulgent prostate cancers are very common. If I walk through the streets of New York City and biopseet everybody over 60, I'd find 35 or so prostate cancers. But again, most of them won't cause a problem.”
“I went to school in Philadelphia. My father had moved as a professor. He was initially drafted from Baltimore to the Air Force. We went to San Antonio, Texas, and I went to St. Mary's Hall. I was the first, one of the first two boys that went into a school that went from nursery all the way through college.”
“I was a geek as a kid. You know, it was about 10 years after Sputnik, and I did this little competition where you had to do this test, and we were one of four kids chosen, and we went lab to lab across the country where we kind of got to tinker in the labs. And I loved being in the lab.”
The David Rubenstein Show: “David B. Agus M.D.”
LISTEN AT THE SOURCE ↗THE RECORD IS CHECKABLE