54 - COVIDCast #5 - Dr. David Fajgenbaum - Repurposing Drugs in the Fight Against COVID

Summary: For this episode, Jonathan Wakim and my fellow Co-President Logan Brock joined me to welcome back our very first guest on this podcast all the way back in 2017, Dr. David Fajgenbaum. In the episode we hear about some of the major milestones and highlights of the last 3 years since we last spoke with Dr. Fajgenbaum. These include memories of successfully treating other Castleman patients with the drug sirolimus, the birth of his daughter Amelia at Pennsylvania Hospital, and publishing the book, Chasing My Cure. We also discuss the decision to transition some of Dr. Fajgenbaum’s lab’s resources to studying COVID, and what specifically we can learn from the CDCN’s previous research on cytokine storms and on repurposing off-label drugs to treat rare diseases. We talk more in detail about their tireless work diving into all of the published literature (which was more than 2500 papers and counting) to find which drugs have been tried against COVID-19 to get a better sense of what has been done, what may be working, and where we can go from here. We wrap up with a quick discussion of some precautions Dr. Fajgenbaum is taking, as someone who is on an immunosuppressive drug, his love for Borat (yes, you heard that right), and what Dr. Fajgenbaum is most looking forward to in the coming years. - Ryan O'Keefe Footnotes Dr. Fajgenbaum’s LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfajgenbaum/ Dr. Fajgenbaum’s Twitter https://twitter.com/davidfajgenbaum?lang=en Chasing my Cure https://www.amazon.com/dp/1524799610 The CDCN Website https://cdcn.org/ Drug Repurposing https://cdcn.org/repurpose/ The Database the CDCN Created on All COVID Drugs Used https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jH0MRE9S8CDOfL-lP9GM4eMIx6aKOAEa_uLgwJBHRL4/edit#gid=0 WHYY Article/Podcast https://whyy.org/segments/penn-doctor-uses-his-near-death-experiences-to-research-why-covid-19-patients-crash/ Dr. Fajgenbaum's Full Bio David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc is a groundbreaking physician-scientist, disease hunter, and bestselling author of the acclaimed memoir, Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope Into Action. Fajgenbaum went from being a beast-like college Quarterback to receiving his last rites while in medical school and nearly dying four more times battling Castleman disease. To try to save his own life, he spearheaded an innovative approach to research and discovered a possible treatment that has put him into an extended remission. Now, he is spreading this approach to advance cures for other diseases and sharing lessons he learned about living from nearly dying through Chasing My Cure. One of the youngest individuals ever appointed to the faculty at Penn Medicine and the top 1 percent youngest grant awardees of a leading NIH grant, Dr. Fajgenbaum is co-founder and executive director of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN) and Associate Director, Patient Impact, for the Penn Orphan Disease Center. He has been recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, as a top healthcare leader by Becker's Hospital Review, the Global Genes RARE Champion of Hope: Science awardee, and one of three recipients--including Vice President Joe Biden--of a 2016 Atlas Award from the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. Before co-founding the CDCN, Dr. Fajgenbaum co-founded and led the Actively Moving Forward Support Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting grieving college students. Dr. Fajgenbaum has been profiled in a cover story by The New York Times as well as by Good Morning America, CNN, and the Today Show, among others. Dr. Fajgenbaum earned a BS from Georgetown University magna cum laude with honors and distinction, MSc from the University of Oxford, MD from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and MBA from The Wharton School. He is a former Division I college quarterback, state-champion weight lifter, and co-founder of a national grief support network.