TKS Session 29: WBP Cancer + Velocity Session 18

For this session in velocity, we did another check-in on our progress with our focus. I finally figured out the coding problem that was keeping me from making further progress on my focus, so that was a great accomplishment for me. I also connected with more experts in the phage therapy space and have made progress with internship/opportunity work. So, we heard about what others were working on in their focus, and then we talked about building our personal brand. We got this workbook where we could create things to fix up our personal brand and help us have better networking chances.

After velocity, we then got into the MotW for this session, falling in hate. Falling in love is where you hate a problem so much that it’s actually what gives you the motivation to try and find a solution for it. People say you need to fall in love with the problem to have a big impact, but really you are falling in hate with the problem and falling in love with solving it. That is the best connection you can have with what you’re working on in order to make a big and meaningful impact with what you’re doing.

We then jumped straight into the session, where we talked about one of the world’s biggest problems, cancer. We looked at how cancer is the second leading cause of death, and how we have invested billions to try and find cures, yet no cures have been found, and the rates of death due to cancer have actually grown and continue to rise.

What we found was that cancer is actually not as harmful as it’s known for from stages 0-2, but is deadly at stages 3-4. Those who get stage 0-2 cancer have way higher chances of survival compared to those at stage 3-4. So, what if the solution wasn’t trying to find a cure for cancer, but instead trying to find ways to detect the cancer early enough, where it is still treatable and survival rates are high. So, that’s what we focused on in session.

Our activity was to research a specific type of cancer and learn about what it is, what causes it, what the current detection methods are for the cancer, and what companies are doing in the space and how they are revolutionizing early cancer detection.

For our group, we chose to look at brain cancer and how people are doing early detection of it. Brain cancer occurs from mutations in the brain’s cells, and then those mutated cells continue to grow and form a tumor. The tumor then applies pressure on the brain, because the skull keeps it a closed space and provides no room for the tumor to grow, causing you to produce different symptoms like headaches, seizures, memory problems, hearing/vision problems, and other coordination problems.

To detect brain cancer, some early detection methods we have include:

• Neurological examinations

• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

• Blood testing

• Genetic testing

• Biopsy

While some of these are effective, and others invasive (like a biopsy), none of these methods help in detecting early brain cancer presence. So, we looked at some of the companies trying to innovate solutions to detecting brain cancer earlier, before it reaches severe stages.

Dxcovcer is developing more advanced blood testing that can detect more cancer biomarkers to speed up the detection process and fast-track diagnosis and treatment. The blood testing utilizes AI interpretation for more accurate results.

AFX Medical is developing improved AI-powered MRI software that has more precision in identifying and diagnosing brain tumors, promoting earlier and faster detection of the tumor. It’s more precise, being able to measure the exact size of the tumor and detect smaller and more overlooked tumors that may normally go undetected.

We then chose one of the companies we looked at and did an analysis of the company using some criteria VCs go over when deciding whether or not to invest in startups. The company we looked over was AFX Medical, and we evaluated different things like their key tractions, competitors, company market size, team background, and other things to come up with a final recommendation, where we look at six different categories and rank the company’s performance in each of them from 1-6.

That was the end of the session, and we were all getting excited because next week was the start of moonshots, where we develop our own exciting project for the next month. I’m really looking forward to it!