Karie Dozer: [00:00:05] I'm Karie Dozer and this is TGen Talks coming to you today from TGen headquarters in Phoenix, where for the first time in 18 months, staff and scientists are returning to their offices and labs in person. While TGen North quickly shifted its focus to the fight against covid-19, Phoenix-based research into cancers and other diseases and disorders didn't miss a beat. For today's show, I spent time with Dr. Jeffrey Trent, TGen's founding president and medical director at his Fifth Street office in downtown Phoenix, where the halls and labs are busy and almost back to normal. It's a bit of a back-to-school episode of TGen Talks today, and I'm joined by Dr. Jeff Trent himself for this episode of TGen Talks Back to School, Back to Work. It feels like we're back to something. What's it like to be back in the office at TGen? [00:00:55][50.3]
Dr. Jeffrey Trent: [00:00:56] Well, one of the things over the past year that has been so important is that TGen has been an exempt organization from the standpoint of being able to bring some of our faculty on-site and be able to work. But really, in the last week or so, finally now we're bringing all of the teams together that were remote and there's definitely a higher energy level. There's definitely an opportunity now because we have the Helios group here as well, those students that are part of our summer program. We just also had the high school program that it just brings that energy and opportunity for collaboration that we we all need. We need that interface and interaction. So delighted to have people back. But certainly, it's been a remarkable year of work, even outside of the area of COVID. [00:01:48][51.4]
Karie Dozer: [00:01:49] You mentioned the interns. It must be fun to have college kids and high school kids around, if only for a few weeks in the summer. They obviously get a lot from TGen. What does TGen get from them? [00:01:59][10.1]
Dr. Jeffrey Trent: [00:02:00] Well, one has just that picture of the next generation is joyous, but frankly, you would be surprised the contribution that many of them make to these individual projects. It's not what it would have been perhaps 20 years ago where you're washing dishes or making coffee or something. These are individuals writing code around computers. They're participating in key experiments. They're helping participate in the dialog and discussion. And so this is a really prepared generation in many regards and gives you great hope for the future. [00:02:41][40.8]
Karie Dozer: [00:02:42] So much of what TGen has done in the past year has been about COVID. But with so many people working from home and that becoming the new norm, how does hands-on lab work get done or not get done under these circumstances? Is it difficult to operate when so many people are not coming into the office every day? [00:03:00][18.5]
Dr. Jeffrey Trent: [00:03:01] Well, again, I think one of the surprising things is just how much has been accomplished over the past years in the areas that we're involved in, particularly earlier detection, smarter treatments, and better outcomes. And that begins in many regards, not just with technology, but literally the treatment side. And so our clinics have been open every day for cancer patients and really wanted to highlight two things, you know, one, in regards to Dr. Von Hoff. And this year, he is being named the inaugural recipient of an award by the largest cancer research organization in the world, American Association of Cancer Research. Forty thousand cancer doctors and researchers actually set this award up to acknowledge the contribution that Dr. Von Hoff has made in the area of education and training of the next generation of medical oncologists. So in addition to the work that he's done in pancreas and continues to do in pancreas cancer, he's really helped train literally thousands now through various courses over his entire 30 plus year career. We also named Sunil Sharma as our physician in chief. Dr. Shama's program is in colon cancer and a lot of the work that he's doing, it helps us understand how to use our immune system to treat our cancers. So I wanted to highlight those two individuals and the clinical part, because while many people didn't come in for their visits, why we need to continue to be vigilant, not just for earlier detection, but for just detection in general of cancer, those individuals continued to work every day in the TGen clinic and Honor Health that has supported so many individuals going forward. [00:04:56][115.2]
Karie Dozer: [00:04:57] What is it like for TGen to have a Dr. Von Hoff and a Dr. Sharma? How unusual is that to have two such leaders in the field? [00:05:07][9.7]
Dr. Jeffrey Trent: [00:05:07] Yeah, we're really remarkably focused on ensuring the work we do has a path to the clinic, but that's what really differentiates TGen. We see cancer patients every day and hour, whether it's the undiagnosed childhood clinic, whether it's the phase one clinical trials that we do, the work that we do needs to have that purpose-driven focus at making a difference and having physician scientists, a critical part of TGen, has really helped make us who we. [00:05:45][37.4]
Karie Dozer: [00:05:45] TGen is about to be 20 years old. Is TGen still in its childhood? Is it a teenager? Is it.. how mature is TGen compared to when the doors first opened? [00:05:56][10.7]
Dr. Jeffrey Trent: [00:05:57] Yeah, it's a great point. And there's two ways to look at it. One, and because TGen became part of City of Hope, and that's almost a hundred and twenty-five years old, it's hard to not look at us as an adolescent when the. But I would argue that almost the way you look at dog years, genome years have accelerated the path of science, technology, medicine, so that this knowledge explosion that has happened with the genomic information has accelerated the work we've done where, you know, when we started 20 years ago, there was virtually no use of molecular medicine in cancer treatment. And now it is the, you know, you're mistreated. You're if you don't receive critical information that's at the molecular level for treatment, It's standard of care. So I think, you know, again, we're young, but in genome years, we're not nearly as young. [00:06:57][60.0]
Karie Dozer: [00:06:58] What are you most excited about as you look at 2021, ending 2022, beginning new staff coming on board, and new projects? What excites you the most every day? [00:07:09][11.8]
Dr. Jeffrey Trent: [00:07:10] Well, actually personalize it a little bit. You know, the area of my interest in where we are so excited finally to scale is precision medicine is not precise for every American, and especially it's not precise for those that are of non-European ancestry. So African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and of course, American Indians have a very different outcome. And that's because so much of the genomic information is built on data that the preponderance of that data comes from northern Europeans. So TGen is about to finally announce a major initiative with American Indians of the Southwest. I'm the co-principal investigator with a woman physician-scientist who actually Cheryl Welman is about to become Dr. Wilman, the head of Mayo Clinics, cancer programs across the globe. So not just Arizona, not just Minnesota or Florida, but Abu Dhabi and London and the other programs that they have. So Dr. Wilman and I have been friends and colleagues for twenty or thirty years and just received a large grant that we'll be announcing shortly that will be the largest grant ever provided by the National Institutes of Health to support genomic sequencing for American Indians. And this is really important because of all ethnic groups, all ethnic groups across the globe. The American Indians have the highest incidence, the highest death rate of cancer across the board and adjusted for all socioeconomic and other aspects. This is an area, though, that is... We have almost no information about and we're very excited about it, so that's an area that I'm personally involved in and excited to bring forward for this coming year. [00:09:25][134.8]
Karie Dozer: [00:09:25] What's the time frame for that endeavor? Is there a five-year timeframe? [00:09:28][2.9]
Dr. Jeffrey Trent: [00:09:29] Yeah, there is. It's a five-year grant. It was meant to start last year. The reason we didn't announce it, even though we've done we've built all the infrastructure, but the reservations were so closed over the course of the last year that we slid this forward and really are just beginning now to be able to begin that project. So it's really funded for the next five years. But what's very different about this, just very quickly, is so much of the effort in the area of sequencing is trying to collect data that will help the global good of everyone. So while you may have participated in these are this is actually funded through the Beau Biden Moonshot Project. This is President Biden's son, Beau, who died of glioblastoma. In his honor, there were funds provided to the National Institutes of Health to support sort of like a big library of information on all cancers. But it didn't help the people that were who had cancer and contributed. This is very different. This is the first time that the NIH, under this program, you're required to use the information that we generate to hand back to the physician to help the patient sitting in front of us today. So it is tailor-made for what TGen does. So what's exciting about that program is that it's the first that has patient engagement, believe it or not, after almost five years of collecting information for the common good. And that's one of the reasons we're so excited because it really fits with our framework of trying to help the patient that's in front of us today. [00:11:20][110.9]
Karie Dozer: [00:11:20] Anything I've missed, anything I should have asked you about TGen in July of 2021 that I did not ask? [00:11:27][6.7]
Dr. Jeffrey Trent: [00:11:27] No, we're just delighted and appreciative for you and all those that support us and those willing to listen to this podcast and support TGen and it's work going forward. [00:11:38][10.9]
Karie Dozer: [00:11:39] Thank you, Dr. Trent. [00:11:40][0.6]
Dr. Jeffrey Trent: [00:11:41] Thank you. [00:11:41][0.3]
Karie Dozer: [00:11:44] And thank you for listening to TGen Talks. For more episodes, go to tgen.org/TGenTalks. TGen is an affiliate of City of Hope for TGen Talks, I'm Keri Dozer. [00:11:44][0.0]
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