Azra Raza’s First Cell Center wants to take a different approach to fighting cancer: Detect the fire before it spreads

The summary of azra’s interview on the podcast, mindscape:

In the United States, more than one in five deaths is caused by cancer. The medical community has put enormous resources into fighting this disease, yet its causes and best treatments continue to be a puzzle. Azra Raza has been on both sides of the patient’s bed, as she puts it — both as an oncologist and expert in the treatment of Myelodisplastic Syndrome (MDS), and as a wife who lost her husband to cancer. In her new book, The First Cell, she argues that we have placed too much emphasis on treating cancer once it has already developed, and not nearly enough on catching it as soon as possible. We talk about what cancer is and why it’s such a difficult disease to understand, as well as discussing how patients and their loved ones should face up to the challenges of dealing with cancer.

I found the mindscape episode compelling, I’d recommend it as an introduction to Azra and her project.

From Azra’s site

[The focus of my research now, is] Ultimately, to develop implantable devices that monitor and detect the first cells through constant surveillance of healthy individuals from birth to death