The latest in cancer therapeutics, diagnostics, and early detection | Keith Flaherty, M.D.

**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, and we've established a great team of analysts to make this happen. It is extremely important to me to provide all of this content without relying on paid ads. To do this, our work is made entirely possible by our members, and in return, we offer exclusive member-only content and benefits above and beyond what is available for free.
If you want to take your knowledge of this space to the next level, it's our goal to ensure members get back much more than the price of the subscription. If you want to learn more about the benefits of our premium membership, head over to peterattiamd.com forward slash subscribe.
My returning guest this week is Dr. Keith Flaherty. Keith was a previous guest on episode number 62 of The Drive way back in July of 2019 Keith is currently the director of clinical research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. And he serves as the editor in chief of Clinical Cancer Research, a very prestigious journal.
His research focuses on understanding novel molecularly targeted therapies in cancer. Within this field, his focus has been on the development of response and predictive biomarkers to define the mechanism of action and resistance of novel therapies, as well as to identify the optimal target populations. In this episode, we start by looking at some of the statistics around the prevalence of cancer as we age. This really highlights the importance of this topic. And although we don't spend a lot of time on it, because I think intuitively people understand that, I do think it's important for people to understand progress. We then, of course, shift to what has been done and what has not been done over the past several decades. And there have been some very notable improvements in cancer therapy over the last 10 years, which we highlight. From there, we shift our focus to looking at what is on the horizon and what the future of cancer therapeutic holds, both in the short term and in the long term. And I think that even within a five-year period, there are some incredibly exciting things that look to build on the successes of the past decade.
We also talk about liquid biopsies, which of course play a very important role in early diagnosis of cancer. And we talk about the state of the art today, but again, what we think it's going to be in the future. And this is something that you've probably heard me talk about in the past. Liquid biopsies have the potential to diagnose cancer from a simple vial of blood, where they not only can determine if a cancer is present in an early stage, but also identify the possible tissue of origin. Now a lot has changed since Keith and I initially spoke over four years ago, which is why I thought it made sense to have him back and talk about these things again. And I will say this conversation was illuminating to me, and it certainly won't disappoint those of you who are interested in cancer. So without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Keith Flaherty.
Hey, Keith. Great to be back with you again. Hard to believe it was almost exactly four years ago that we sat down in Boston to do what will be part one of this discussion. But we've got a lot more listeners now, and it's not like some of that content isn't still relevant today. So we'll probably talk a little bit about some of the things we spoke about then. But there are a number of things that I am excited to discuss with you that we haven't talked about. And I suspect that will make up the lion's share of our discussion. So thanks again for making time.

**Keith Flaherty** (3:50)
Yeah, thanks, Peter. It's a great pleasure to talk with you again. And yeah, you're right. Four years, a lot has happened. You know, in therapeutic development, maybe you could have said four years ago that some of the things that have played out would have played out.
But on the diagnostic side, that's I think that's probably where four years ago I was I didn't quite have the crystal ball vision as to how things would develop there. So and of course, those two areas are like tightly related in oncology. So I decided to dig back in.

**Peter Attia** (4:20)