The Brave New World of Immunotherapy

It’s hard to believe today, but leaching was once considered a legitimate and effective medical practice. Years from now, we may look back upon chemotherapy and radiation treatment for cancer in much the same way we now look upon leaching.

In labs today, all across the world, new forms of treatment for cancer and many other diseases under the general heading of immunotherapy are being discovered. The magic of the body’s own immune system is being brought to the task. However, there is no one size fits all, no silver bullet and such treatments are not a free ride. Either with respect to costs or side effects.

Just as the discovery of penicillin and the class of antibiotics, saved millions and truly changed the world, immunotherapy is on the precipice of doing the same for the 21st century.

However, its complexity, its connection to virtually every other aspect of the human body makes its study and the ability to harness and manipulate it, the medical holy grail of our times. Helping us to understand this is Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Matt Richtel in Elegant Defense, An: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives.

My conversation with Matt Richtel:

What Could Happen While You Were Totally Off The Grid For A Few Hours?

Think about what touches us every day?Certainly technology in many forms and soon artificial intelligence. We are touched by our consumption of media, the intense partisan divide fueled by tribalism, and the fear and frustration that sometimes makes us want to escape, and be able to look at all of this from 30K feet, so that we can see it's absurdity.

But of course moments later we’re dropped right back into it. So imagine if all of these powerful and metastasizing forces came together in a recipe that multiplies all of them.

What you’d have is Matt Richtel’s prescient new novel Dead on Arrival.

My conversation with Matt Richtel:

The Cloud

No matter how much we love our technology, it would be foolish to think that it has only positive effects on us. The impact on our lives has been so profound and our acceptance so overwhelming, that arguably in some way, it must rewire us to see and think about the world differently. This is the background for Pulitzer Prize winning N.Y Times reporter Matt Richtel's new technological thriller The Cloud.

My conversation with Matt Richtel:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

What if your brain was hacked?

Along with all the other social divisions we face today, we live in a bifurcated society with respect to technology. On the one hand, we rightly continue to run headlong into a future where a younger generation finds new ways to use technology, to multitask, and to reshape their brains around that technology. On the other hand we have an aging population, whose memories are often fading, who don't understand, or at least resist all of this technology. What happens when these forces collide is the basis of a new novel, Devil's Plaything, by the NY Times Pulitzer Prize winning technology journalist Matt Richtel.

My conversation with Matt Richtel:

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Crackberry

For most of us, being plugged in 24/7 has become the norm. Blackberrys, iphones and ipads have now been layered on to the computer, email, video games and the good old fashion phone. The idea was that all of this technology was supposed to make us more productive and more efficient. In fact, it has made us addicted, distracted, a little bit crazy and a lot less efficient. This is the story that appeared in the N.Y. Times this past Monday, by NY Times, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Matt Richtel. It has garnered world wide attention, and has been e-mailed to Blackberrys and iphones everywhere. 

My conversation with Matt Richtel:

Powered by Podbean.com