Armchair Expert episode 957

David Fajgenbaum (on repurposing medicine)

David Fajgenbaum (Chasing My Cure, Every Cure) is an immunology researcher, professor, and author. David joins the Armchair Expert to discuss being recruited to play football at an assortment of Ivy League schools before ending up at Georgetown, the promise he made to his mother to pursue medicine before she passed away, and starting a foundation in his mom’s honor to help college students with grief. David and Dax talk about the sudden onset of symptoms that meant his liver and kidneys were shutting down, gaining 100 pounds of fluid almost overnight, and nearly dying multiple times amid a diagnosis of Castleman disease. David explains the decision to approach his illness with off-label drugs, putting himself into full remission with a drug used to prevent transplant rejections, and the current mission with non-profit Every Cure to treat other inflammatory diseases with existing medicine.

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Episode overview

David Fajgenbaum (Chasing My Cure, Every Cure) is an immunology researcher, professor, and author. David joins the Armchair Expert to discuss being recruited to play football at an assortment of Ivy League schools before ending up at Georgetown, the promise he made to his mother to pursue medicine before she passed away, and starting a foundation in his mom’s honor to help college students with grief. David and Dax talk about the sudden onset of symptoms that meant his liver and kidneys were shutting down, gaining 100 pounds of fluid almost overnight, and nearly dying multiple times amid a diagnosis of Castleman disease. David explains the decision to approach his illness with off-label drugs, putting himself into full remission with a drug used to prevent transplant rejections, and the current mission with non-profit Every Cure to treat other inflammatory diseases with existing medicine.

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Short transcript highlights

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  1. 0:00Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard joined by Lily Padman.
  2. 51:14breakthrough and the next thing and the next clinical trial and not like, hey, we already had it. That's exactly right. The people who...
  3. 1:45:01added up the amount of time? It was a bush. I would rather had the TV time.
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