Lew Cantley, Ph.D.: Cancer metabolism, cancer therapies, and the discovery of PI3K

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. This podcast, my website and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness, full stop, and we've assembled a great team of analysts to make this happen. If you enjoy this podcast, we've created a membership program that brings you far more in-depth content if you want to take your knowledge of the space to the next level. At the end of this episode, I'll explain what those benefits are, or if you want to learn more now, head over to peterattiamd.com forward slash subscribe.
Now, without further delay, here's today's episode.
I guess this week is Lew Cantley. Lew is the Meyer Director and Professor of Cancer Biology at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.
Lew's research has made significant advances in cancer research, stemming primarily from his discovery of the signaling pathway for PI3 kinase, or PI3K, in the mid-'80s.
And his results here have really touched multiple fields, including cancer first and foremost, but also diabetes and autoimmune disease.
Lew is a very decorated scientist, to put it mildly. It would take me too long to rattle off all of the awards that he's won, but I'll leave it to the four most prestigious, the Gerdner Award, the Breakthrough Prize in Science, the Wolf Prize, and most recently, the Horowitz Prize. Arguably, the only two prizes that are not on that list would be the Lasker Prize and the Nobel Prize. And I think that many people suspect that Lew will ultimately be awarded at least the Nobel Prize, if not both. This is a podcast that at times gets very technical, but most of the technical stuff falls at the end of the podcast. It's actually what we started with, but much like we did in a previous podcast, we're going to move that to the back end of the podcast so that we can jump right into the more concrete stuff that I think people want to hear about with respect to science and we'll treat what was the first 45 minutes of this interview as a technical tour de force of the discovery of PI3K and we'll move that as basically an appendix. So if you're listening to this and you really want to understand science and you really want to understand how discovery is done, stuff that I really like to hear about, by all means, you'll just listen to this as it's laid out. And if you really just want to hear about the implications of Lew's work as it pertains to cancer, then you will probably just listen to the first hour and 45 minutes or so of this and not the remaining 45 minutes.
Before we jump into this, there are just two things I want to say. The first is I want to note Lew's disclosures. Lew is the co-founder of two pharmaceutical companies, Aegios and Petra. And he is also the co-founder of a company that is just getting off the ground called Fayeth. That's F-A-E-T-H. Fayeth is a company that hopes to pair nutrition with pharmaceuticals. And that will all make sense during the podcast. These are all really interesting companies, but I think it's important obviously to list those disclosures at the outset. Secondly, I want to be sure that everyone understands that we have a discussion here that is very detailed at times and very tactical at times with respect to cancer treatment. And certainly every time I talk with Lew, I come away with a new way of thinking about the care of patients with cancer. Please do not mistake what we are talking about here as medical advice. It is impossible to provide medical advice to someone with whom you do not have a doctor-patient relationship. And so unfortunately, I hate saying that, but it is an obligatory disclaimer that I must provide. And whatever we talk about here, the combinations of therapies with respect to drugs for diabetes, drugs for cancer, and of course nutritional therapies, really needs to be had in discussion with your physician. Actually, I lied and I said two things. There's one other thing I want to talk about, which is there is a cancer trial that is about to take off, that is a really interesting and exciting prospect through one of Lew's companies. The enrollment for that trial is just kicking off now. And we will list to that, should anybody listening to this podcast either have the type of cancer that's being studied or know somebody who does. And it would be great to know that people are able to more readily get enrolled in that clinical trial. So without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Lew Cantley.