- I really shouldn't be here today.
I'm living a life that I didn't think I would get to live.
My doctors told me that I had one
of the most aggressive versions
of prostate cancer that they had ever seen.
I didn't think I would see my daughter
actually get out of elementary school.
I went through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation.
It didn't work, so now I'm willing to go outside the lines.
Science and technology have come together
to help us understand that there are
unique drivers of disease in our DNA.
Turns out that genomic sequencing saved my life,
but my cancer started growing again
after two years, and so now I need to figure out
how can I stop it, and those answers
aren't crystal clear right now.
(dramatic music)
- My name is Bryce Olson, and I'm the global
strategist for Intel's Health and Life Sciences Group.
So the standard of care for advanced cancer
is really kind of a cut, burn, poison approach,
but everybody's disease is really unique,
so we shouldn't be treating every individual the same.
I think it's tragic today that 96% of cancer
patients just go on to the standard of care,
and when that stops working, they die.
- When I got diagnosed with stage four
prostate cancer, the cancer had spread
into other parts of my body.
That is when it becomes extremely lethal and dangerous.
I knew that Intel had this group
that was helping the healthcare industry
use technology to make cool transformations,
and so I learned about work that we were doing
with genomic research centers,
like the Broad Institute of MIT-Harvard.
Intel works with the Broad to really help them
accelerate biomedical discoveries.
- So the first human genome took about 10 years
to complete, and now we're doing it
in about 2 days, and that cost went from
several billion dollars down to around $1,000.
- That whole workflow is underpinned by Intel technology.
Disease can really be diagnosed in the DNA.
Genomic sequencing represented a molecular diagnosis.
So I went to my pathologist, and I had two words for him.
I just said, "Sequence me."
In our DNA are six billon letters.
These are essentially the genetic code
that make us who we are.
Genomic sequencing allows us to uncover
that genetic code, and also to look
for mistakes and defects in it
that can be the drivers of disease.
What we found is that I had mutations in my DNA
that were messed up and causing my cancer to grow.
I used that data to find a phase one
early drug trial that offered the opportunity
to shut down those specific drivers
of my disease, and it worked.
It shut it down for two years.
- That's what precision medicine's
really all about, the right drug
for the person at the right time.
-Ohhhh! -We're not done yet!
-Haha, no, I'm not, I'm not done yet.
I love being a dad, and the only reason
why I'm getting to live that life
is because of precision medicine,
but it's not so easy anymore.
I started to build up some resistance
to that drug, and my cancer starting growing again.
So we're now going to try to discover things
that no one else has figured out yet, really.
So I assembled a cross-functional dream team
of researchers that want to partner with patients
on these type of research projects,
to push the envelope, really, on what's driving
somebody's disease and then try to help
figure out a exploratory way to treat it.
- The Broad Institute is one of the largest
genome sequencing centers in the world.
What we're doing is sequencing lots of people
to try and understand the patterns of disease.
Our genomic sequencers put out a huge amount of data.
We manage about 70 petabytes of data,
and to put that into perspective,
if you look at every word in all of the books
that have ever been written, it's still
only about 50 petabytes, so we manage
20 petabytes more than that.
- The problem is, when you start amassing
massive amounts of this data, there's things
that we're gonna miss.
- So, Broad and Intel are working together
to create AI and machine learning-based tools
to analyze genomic data.
- When Intel thinks about artificial
intelligence, we really think about
how artificial intelligence can crunch that data
to find a unique insight.
- AI can find patterns in data
that the human eye can't see, that machines can find.
- As we get better at that into the future,
AI can help unlock those insights
and make it more streamlined for patients
to get the right therapy they need as quickly as possible.
- And that's gonna help someone like me
fight cancer and actually beat it in the long run.
The interesting thing is that, you know,
if it wasn't for Intel, I wouldn't be here
talking to you right now because they
opened my eyes to this new way to fight cancer.
When you get diagnosed with something like this,
you can do one of two things.
You can either go into a deep, dark hole,
or you can try to take the limited time
that you have, and try to make it
as meaningful as possible.
Intel's technology is underpinning
a whole revolution in making these new
discoveries, to really power a new era
of healthcare intelligence.
It's going to enable pharmaceutical companies
to discover the next drug that potentially
might even be in the timeline that I need.
For me specifically, I've got a recurrence.
It's pretty aggressive, but I'm not really
that worried because I know how to fight cancer differently.
Every advanced cancer patient who is running out
of options should demand genomic sequencing
because genomic sequencing can open up
the door to a new way to fight cancer,
and nobody should give up hope.
(dramatic music)