City of Hope National Medical Center

He is a naturopathic doctor, board certified in naturopathic oncology, which is a credential very few people in this country hold.

He trained in microbiology, went through a cancer-focused residency at City of Hope, and he has served as medical director at City of Hope in Phoenix and at the Riordan Clinic in Kansas.

I'm not sure if I said that right.

[laughs]

The drug, Resonique, targets genetic mutations that are common in pancreatic cancers.

We spoke with Dr. Ajaz Khan, Chief Medical Oncology at City of Hope Cancer Center.

What

we really know about pancreatic cancer is that it grows based upon this gene called KRAS.

It was no longer controlling her disease.

She says it's progressed to stage four.

City of Hope is where she went, one of 59 centers just this summer worldwide that had clinical trials of this drug.

And she talked about the moment she learned that she qualified.

I'm Elizabeth Gregerson, a reporter here at Becker's, and today I'm talking to Dr. Ajay Goel.

Dr. Goel is a professor and chair of the Department of Molecular Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics at City of Hope.

Dr. Goel, thank you so much for time.

Before I dive into my questions, I would love if you could share just a bit about your background and your role at City of Hope for our listeners.

Absolutely happy to do so.

So I'm Ajay Goel.

I wear multiple hats at City of Hope.

One of those you introduced already.

Um, this is, uh, this is our old-school con man.

This is the guy that dated Vicki Gunvalson, that filled up her love tank, that would write her a card every day, remember? And he claimed he had cancer, and when he was pressed, he produced medical documents that NBC and the City of Hope said were fabricated.

City of Hope is a hospital that caters towards cancer patients.

One of my, uh, friends, rest in peace, Dirk Kraft, was, uh, taken care of by City of Hope.

They do really amazing work.

But, uh, Brooks later admitted he'd faked these documents, claiming he did that though to prove that he was sick.

I know a lot of companies who are doing glioblastoma-based therapeutics do intratumoral, intraventricular, yeah.

So I know Christine Brown from City of Hope, who I thought that she was kind of working with Mustang, maybe not, but she put a paper out like last year in nature medicine with her glioblastoma CAR T cells.

And they have, it's like a super, there we go.

Local regional delivery of IL-13 receptor alpha two, which is, they have one, they have one here too.