The Endpoints Slack interview: Siddhartha Mukherjee on the doctor-writer worldview, AI, and the future of cancer

where do you find yourself chatting from today?

One area that this could really open up is determining protein-protein interactions. It’s very important for cancer biology to understand the topology of these interactions. Take antibody and antigen interactions. If we could predict these and model these virtually, it would be a huge benefit to the field

we are clearly in a moment full of hype, but also real progress

Then, there’s patient-facing AI. I am thinking of co-pilots and chatbots and non-synchronous chronic care management. That’s also important, but there’s a lot of hype around that, and I think the space is way too crowded.

Then, there’s AI in the so-called “back office”. Management of revenue cycles, improvements in billing and so forth. That’s a powerful use case, and something that I am working on.

Finally, there’s AI in discovery, such as drug discovery. You’ll see a couple of announcements from my lab and group in this area soon, but it’s the one that I am the most excited about. This is the true use of GENERATIVE AI in health care — and it’s the area that is the least understood and, I suspect, the most valuable.

i.e. the back office use (efficient!) versus, say, de novo antibody generation (creative!)

And speaking of trials, I thought we should also catch up on our metabolic program with Faeth.

And, aside from Faeth, you’ll soon hear about two companies in stealth mode that are really bananas. Perhaps you’ll have to have me back to discuss those. We’ll start disclosing those in about a month or two.

and for Faeth, I just caught up with the CEO, but for our audience what’s the latest on their progress and the idea of metabolics in cancer?

I should say Faeth isn’t JUST a “diet” company. It’s a company that focuses on all aspects of metabolism. Sometimes by changing the metabolic state of a patient (eg. by depletion of a nutrient, or changing metabolic signaling). But the PIKTOR program uses the same principles to attack the cancer cell’s internal metabolic program.

by standard, i really mean what you outlined above — a patient going to their typical cancer doctor

But I guess that one lesson of Faeth is that you can go from diet to metabolic modulation. In some senses, you are attacking the same axis. But this time, with drugs rather than diet or diet alone. Diet turned out to be a portal for Faeth to enter the cancer metabolism space, and that has been very very neglected

Or take CAR T. Again, I started with writing about CAR T for a piece for the New Yorker. And then it became a portal: why can’t we make CAR T in India ? And that’s how Immuneel got started

To put it lightly, this is a turbulent time on college campuses. What’s your advice to students graduating and entering the professional world out of this current college culture?

How do you personally define success for your career and life?

Didn’t miss that beat

That’s a true rapid round!