How A Doctor Cured His Own Terminal Disease | Dr. David Fajgenbaum

... my doctor explained to me that we were out of options. He said, "David, we've tried everything. You know, we tried these chemotherapies, we tried this one experimental drug. Um, there's nothing more that we can do." There was, uh, a few-minute period where my dad and my sisters and, and my girlfriend around me, and we were just, um, just bawling our eyes out. You know, we're, "This is the world's expert." And I kept probing him, like, "Is there any cell type or signaling pathway or is there something we can target?" Like, and then he said, "David, there's nothing." "Is there anything in an early stage of development?" "David, there is nothing." I, I heard what he was saying, but then I thought to myself, "You just gave me seven chemotherapies that were made for lymphoma and my- multiple myeloma, and they've saved my life now three times. They're not... It's not long-term. Like, I know I keep relapsing, but, like, if these seven chemotherapies are working, how do we know there's not an eighth chemotherapy or a ninth drug for something else? Like, you can't tell me... We haven't tried all 4,000 drugs. We've just tried the drugs that maybe we've thought to try." And so I just locked in right then, and I turned to my family and just sort of wiped away my tears and said, "I'm gonna dedicate the rest of my life, however long that's gonna be, it might be a couple of days, maybe it'll be a couple of months, but however long I've got to try to find out, is there a drug out there that could help me and other patients with my disease that's made for another condition?" I just believe that the 4,000 drugs we have today should help all the patients who can benefit from them.

Mm-hmm.

Period. Like, no one should suffer if there's a drug at your CVS that could help you.

Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. David Fajgenbaum. Dr. David Fajgenbaum is a professor of translational medicine and human genetics at the University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses on finding novel cures to both rare and common human diseases by using drugs and other treatments that already exist and that are approved for use in humans for other purposes. As it turns out, most approved drugs impact at least 40 different pathways and mechanisms across the human brain and body, but these drugs are generally approved for use in just one or two of those pathways. David shares with us the many commonly unknown yet powerful benefits of drugs that are already approved for things like heart health, combating cancer, neurodegeneration and more. From his own near-death experience with Castleman's disease, David discovered that the medical profession already has in hand excellent treatments and perhaps even cures for many of the childhood and adult diseases that the medical profession deems uncurable or untreatable. In addition to running his laboratory, where they search for novel treatments and cures using already approved drugs, David has started a not-for-profit called Every Cure, which helps people find treatments and cures to diseases that the medical field has essentially deemed untreatable. And that work has already saved countless lives. Our discussion today is about how to navigate your health journey and how to approach the treatment of any illness that you or a relative may face. It's also about the fact that while the fields of medicine and science are truly incredible and well-intentioned, they do have a giant blind spot built into them, which is that many effective treatments, and in some cases, cures, exist to diseases that we are told are hopeless to treat, and that even the best-trained and well-meaning MDs are often unaware of those treatments, not because they are lazy or that they have some other agenda, but simply because of how medications are studied, patented, and categorized. As you'll soon learn, Dr. Fajgenbaum is on a mission to educate doctors, scientists, and most importantly, you, the general public, about these facts. He has lived them directly. He's an MD who got very sick with what he was told was a terminal disease, and when the existing system left him at a cliff, he went about curing that disease using old medications in new ways, and he is now helping others who need to do the same. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. David Fajgenbaum. Dr. David Fajgenbaum, welcome.