WEBVTT

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"You have cancer."

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Sadly, about 40 percent of us will hear
those three words within our lifetime,

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and half will not survive.

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This means that two out of five
of your closest friends and relatives

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will be diagnosed
with some form of cancer,

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and one will die.

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Beyond the physical hardships,

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roughly one-third
of cancer survivors here in the US

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will go into debt from treatment.

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And they're at least two and a half times
more likely to declare bankruptcy

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than those without cancer.

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This disease is pervasive.

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It's emotionally draining,

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and for many,

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financially destructive.

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But a cancer diagnosis
doesn't have to be a death sentence.

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Finding cancer early,

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closer its genesis,

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is one of the critical factors
to improving treatment options,

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reducing its emotional impact

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and minimizing financial burdens.

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Most importantly,

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finding cancer early --

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which is one of the primary
aims of my research --

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greatly enhances your odds of survival.

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If we just look at the case
of breast cancer for example,

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we find that those who are diagnosed
and treated at stage one

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have a five-year survival rate
of nearly 100 percent --

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odds that decrease to just 22 percent
if treated at stage four.

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And similar trends are found
for colorectal and ovarian cancer.

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Now, we're all aware
that an early diagnosis that is accurate

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is critical for survival.

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The problem is that many
cancer diagnostic tools are invasive,

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costly,

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often inaccurate

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and they can take an agonizing
amount of time to get the results back.

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Still worse, when it comes
to some forms of cancer,

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such as ovarian,
liver or pancreatic cancer,

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good screening methods simply don't exist,

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meaning that often people wait
until physical symptoms surface,

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which are themselves already
indicators of late-stage progression.

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Like a tornado strike in an area
without an early warning system,

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there is no alarm to warn,

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for the danger is already at your doorstep

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when your odds of survival
are greatly reduced.

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Having the convenience and accessibility
of regular screening options

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that are affordable, noninvasive
and could provide results much sooner,

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would provide us with a formidable
weapon in the fight against cancer.

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An early warning would allow us
to get out ahead of the disease

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instead of merely
following in its relentless wake.

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And this is exactly what I've been doing.

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For the past three years,
I've been developing technologies

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that could ultimately aid clinicians

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with rapid, early-stage
cancer diagnostics.

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And I've been fueled
by a deep scientific curiosity,

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and a passion to change these statistics.

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Last year however,

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this fight became much more personal

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when my wife was diagnosed
with breast cancer.

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It was an experience that added a strong
and unexpected emotional dimension

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to these efforts.

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I know firsthand how life altering
treatment can be,

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and I'm keenly aware
of the emotional havoc

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that cancer can wreak on a family,

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which in our case
included our two young daughters.

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Because we found it early
during a routine mammogram,

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we were able to focus
primarily on treatment options

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for the localized tumor,

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reaffirming to me
how important an early diagnosis is.

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Unlike other forms of cancer,

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mammograms do offer an early-stage
screening option for breast cancer.

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Still, not everyone has this done,

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or they may develop cancer

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before the middle age recommendation
for having a mammogram.

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So, there's still
a lot of room for improvement,

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even for cancers
that do have screening options.

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And of course, considerable benefits
for those that don't.

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A key challenge then
for cancer researchers

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is to develop methods

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that make regular screening
for many types of cancers

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much more accessible.

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Imagine a scenario
where during your regular checkup,

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your doctor can take
a simple, noninvasive urine sample,

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or other liquid biopsy,

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and present you with the results
before you even leave the doctor's office.

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Such a technology could
dramatically reduce the number of people

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who slip through the net
of an early-stage cancer diagnosis.

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My research team
of engineers and biochemists

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is working on exactly this challenge.

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We're working on ways to frequently
activate an early-stage cancer alarm

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by enabling regular screenings
that would start when a person is healthy

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so that action could be taken
to stop cancer the moment it emerges,

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and before it can progress
beyond its infancy.

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The silver bullet in this case
are tiny vesicles,

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little escape pods regularly shed
by cells called exosomes.

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Exosomes are important biomarkers

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that provide an early-warning system
for the development of cancer.

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And because they're abundantly present
in just about every bodily fluid,

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including blood, urine and saliva,

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they're extremely attractive
for noninvasive liquid biopsies.

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There's just one problem.

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An automated system for rapidly sorting
these important biomarkers

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is not currently available.

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We've created a technology
that we call nano-DLD

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that is capable of precisely this:

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automated exosome isolation

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to aid rapid cancer diagnostics.

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Exosomes are the newest
early-warning weapon, if you will,

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to emerge on the liquid biopsy front.

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And they're really, really small.

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They measure just 30 to 150
nanometers in diameter.

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This is so tiny

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that you could fit about a million
of them into a single red blood cell.

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That's roughly the difference
between a golf ball

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and a fine grain piece of sand.

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Once thought to be little bins
for unwanted cellular waste,

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it has been found
that cells actually communicate

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by producing and absorbing these exosomes

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which contain surface receptors,

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proteins and other genetic material
collected from their cell of origin.

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When absorbed by a neighboring cell,

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exosomes release their contents
into the receiving cell,

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and can set in motion
fundamental changes in gene expression --

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some good --

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and this is where cancer comes in --

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some bad.

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Because they are clothed
in the material of the mother cell,

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and contain a sample of its environment,

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they provide a genetic snapshot
of that cell's health and its origin.

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All of these qualities
make exosomes invaluable messengers

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that potentially allow physicians

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to eavesdrop on your health
at the cellular level.

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To catch cancer early, however,

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you have to frequently
intercept these messages

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to determine when cancer-causing
troublemakers within your body

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decide to start staging a coup,

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which is why regular
screening is so critical

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and why we're developing
technologies to make this possible.

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While the first exosome-based diagnostics
emerged on the market just this year,

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they are not yet part
of mainstream healthcare options.

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In addition to their recent emergence,

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another factor that's limiting
their widespread adoption

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is that currently, no automated
exosome isolation system exists

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to make regular screening
economically accessible.

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The current gold standard
for exosome isolation

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includes ultracentrifugation,

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a process requiring
expensive laboratory equipment,

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a trained lab tech

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and about 30 hours of time
to process a sample.

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We've come up with a different approach
for achieving automated exosome isolation

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from a sample such as urine.

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We use a chip-based, continuous flow
separation technique

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called deterministic lateral displacement,

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and we have done with it

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what the semiconductor industry has done
so successfully for the past 50 years.

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We shrunk the dimensions
of this technology

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from the micron scale
to the true nanoscale.

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So how does it work?

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In a nutshell,

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a set of tiny pillars
separated by nanoscopic gaps

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are arranged in such a way

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that the system divides
the fluid into streamlines,

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with the larger cancer-related
nanoparticles being separated

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through a process of redirection
from the smaller, healthier ones,

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which can in contrast

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move around the pillars
in a zigzag-type motion

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in the direction of fluid flow.

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The net result is a complete separation
of these two particle populations.

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You can visualize this separation process

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similar to traffic on a highway
that separates into two roads,

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with one road going into
a low-clearance tunnel under a mountain,

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and the other road going around it.

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Here, smaller cars
can go through the tunnel

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while larger trucks,
carrying potentially hazardous material,

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are forced to take the detour route.

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Traffic is effectively separated
by size and contents

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without impeding its flow.

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And this is exactly how our system works
on a much, much smaller scale.

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The idea here is that
the separation process for screening

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could be as simple as processing
a sample of urine, blood or saliva,

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which is a near-term possibility
within the next few years.

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Ultimately, it could be used
to isolate and detect target exosomes

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associated with
a particular type of cancer,

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sensing and reporting
their presence within minutes.

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This would make rapid diagnostics
virtually painless.

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Broadly speaking,

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the ability to separate
and enrich biomarkers

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with nanoscale precision
in an automated way,

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opens the door to better understanding
diseases such as cancer,

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with applications ranging
from sample preparation to diagnostics,

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and from drug resistance
monitoring to therapeutics.

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Even before my wife's bout with cancer,

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it was a dream of mine to facilitate
the automation of this process --

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to make regular screening more accessible,

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similar to the way Henry Ford
made the automobile accessible

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to the general population

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through development of the assembly line.

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Automation is the key to accessibility.

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And in the spirit of the Hoover dream,

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"a chicken in every pot
and a car in every garage,"

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we're developing a technology

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that could ultimately place
an early-warning cancer detection system

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in every home.

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This would allow
every man, woman and child

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the opportunity to be regularly tested
while they're still healthy,

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catching cancer when it first emerges.

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It is my hope and dream

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to help people around the world
avoid the high costs --

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physical, financial and emotional --

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faced by today's cancer patients ...

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hardships that I'm well acquainted with.

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I'm also happy to report that because
we caught my wife's cancer early,

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her treatment was successful,

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and she is now, thankfully, cancer-free.

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(Applause)

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It is an outcome that I would like to see
for everyone with a cancer diagnosis.

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With the work that my team
has already done

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on separation of nanoscale biomarkers

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for rapid, early-stage cancer diagnostics,

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I am optimistic
that within the next decade,

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this type of technology will be available,

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helping protect our friends,
our family and future generations.

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Even if we are so unlucky
as to be diagnosed with cancer,

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that early-stage alarm
will provide a strong beacon of hope.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)