Ben Comer, Editor-in-Chief, Life Sciences Leader
Dr. Alicia Chou
Cancer Research Institute (CRI)’s new CEO, Dr. Alicia Zhou, aims to bring her experience in academia and the West Coast health tech startup scene to the 70-year-old nonprofit agency with deep knowledge. Masu. The roots of cancer immunotherapy. Her experience using big data to improve molecular therapeutics in both academic and startup settings has the potential to help CRI have even greater impact in the future. “I felt like[CRI]was undervalued as an institution, and a lot of people had never heard of it,” Chou says. “One thing I feel like I can really make a difference is raising awareness in the scientific community and the general public about what CRI is doing.”
Chou trained in cancer research at MIT, Harvard University, and UCSF and spent 15 years focusing on breast cancer and molecular biology before joining a San Francisco-based health tech startup called Color 10 years ago. I was there. Color’s goal is to “democratize access to germline genetic tests and help people understand the meaning of their results,” such as cancer predisposition tests, Zhou said. In his role as Color’s chief scientific officer, Zhou became PI for the NIH’s All of Us Research Program five years ago, conducting research on when and how to access and use genomic cancer predisposition data. Gained additional experience educating participants. To improve personal health.
CRI’s Scientific Advisory Board—not just the scientists who receive grants from the institute led by 2018 Nobel Prize winner Dr. James P. I want to be invited to.” As a nonprofit organization, CRI is “in a unique position to bring together sites and spaces to really move things forward,” Chou said. This is important because oncology is becoming increasingly fragmented, with individual researchers and industry scientists working on siled patient cohorts and treatments. “What we end up with is a pharmaceutical company that is putting together a very small cohort that targets a very specific pathway, a specific tumor type, or a specific molecule. It means we’re losing the ability to share. Being part of a nonprofit organization allows us to bring the right people to the table to optimize the system instead of breaking it down. I felt it.”
Zhou is interested in leveraging his experience with large datasets to build open access data assets and tools that benefit drug developers at CRI. Having worked in the startup field, Mr. Zhou recognized the value of incubators in providing specialized talent to fill gaps in startups. At CRI, Chou envisions the possibility of an incubator model that could, for example, lend staff of data scientists to pure science institutes to help develop data-driven research capabilities that don’t yet exist.
Build on legacy
CRI’s history and legacy is firmly rooted in cancer immunotherapy. Outgoing CEO Jill O’Donnell-Tormey led the organization as CEO for more than 30 years, a period of great activity and success in the development of cancer immunotherapies. I spoke with her in 2014 about some of these new treatments.
In just his second week as CEO (at the time of our conversation), Chou says he finds it helpful to “make a list of problems that need to be solved” and cross-reference that list with specific organizational problems. states (in this case) CRI — is in a unique position to solve. “Sometimes we see the mistake that organizations really want to tackle a particular problem, but they don’t have the resources or people in place to get it done.” You have to learn to be in a position and cross-reference that list with a list of problems worth solving,” she says. “Immunotherapy is our capability…but as oncology has cross-functional treatment plans and is becoming more systems-focused, CRI will naturally include ADCs and radiopharmaceuticals. Become an expert in all other treatment areas and have to be considerate of all of them,” e.g.
Early detection of cancer is also an important piece of the cancer puzzle. Zhou said it is important not only to detect cancer early, but also to develop better and more accurate personalized treatments and combinations. “Probably what I’m most excited about is not any particular diagnostic tool or treatment, but starting to integrate all of them. We need new ways of thinking about treatments, drug development, diagnostic development… We need to get everyone at the table.”
biopharmaceutical convener
Under Mr. Chou’s leadership, CRI will continue to be a friend of the biopharmaceutical industry and help bring together various stakeholders in pursuit of common goals. “Academics will be conducting preclinical research that is very promising and worthy of clinical implementation, but it will require biopharmaceutical partnerships,” Zhou said. “On the other hand, pharmaceutical companies really need the expertise from academic clinicians and access to patients from oncologists themselves.”
Chou said he wants people to see CRI as a place where people and partnerships come together. “In addition to all the funding for academia, I think we should have more strategic partnerships with industry.”
