Llewellyn King: How to attack cancer with data mining

NASA’s Omar Hatamleh

The word is exaptation. It will change the future, and it may save your life

It is a word traditionally used in evolutionary biology. But now in scientific and high-tech circles, it is used to describe finding and adapting processes and compounds to uses for which they were not originally intended.

In biology, exaptation is used to describe how an evolving species uses a trait in a new way.

The classic cited example of exaptation is prehistoric creatures that developed wings to keep warm. A later iteration in the same species finds wings can also be used to fly.

In today’s use of the word, it means cross-fertilization of old discoveries with new technologies; extant remedies applied in new ways.

For example, a medicine that was created to treat one disease may be used effectively for another. A drug destined for a specific cancer may be used to treat an immune disorder such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. A material developed for space travel may be ideal for strength and lightness in an automobile.

All this takes on much greater importance in the age of mega data and computer capacity to delve into it and find treasuries of new uses.

Today’s machine learning enables the data to be squeezed and pummeled into yielding extraordinary applications and solutions.

“The challenge is to break down silos and to get companies to democratize their data internally and externally,” says Ryan Caldwell, CEO of MX, a financial technology company.

Now a forward-thinking NASA engineer wants to put this approach -- this multidisciplinary, multi-material, multi-compound, multi-procedural, multi-operational data approach -- on a fast track, accelerating cures and solutions.

He is Omar Hatamleh, chief innovation officer, engineering, at the Johnson Space Center (in Houston) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and executive director of the Space Studies Program at the International Space University. Hatamleh, a polymath with a fistful of degrees, is establishing Infinity Institute, a new kind of think tank that will accelerate cross-industry innovation over the whole spectrum of discovery and application.

Think discovery and rediscovery as the findings of the past are linked to the needs of today, and as findings in one technology can pollinate unrelated technologies. Essentially, it is the story of NASA and the collateral developments from the space program. Exaptation at work.

The genesis of the Infinity Institute is to be found in a series of four annual NASA cross-industry innovation conferences -- the last just concluded.

They were notable for what was not on the agenda: no large discussions of money or the lack of it; no whining about government or regulations, or court decisions. Just a world of science, ideas and the bond between the seemingly incompatible, which when brought together inform each other. A cellist, Jennifer Stumm, described the math in Bach and what that means for science. A NASA scientist, Steve Rader, described how to find affinity ideas through the Internet of Things. An animated filmmaker, Charlie Wen of Marvel Studios, revealed synergies with industrial design.

In the last of these conferences, data expert Caldwell described how he used the very kind of data management and interrogation Infinity Institute has in mind to save the life of a colleague at MX.

When Brandon Dewitt was diagnosed with terminal cancer in his lungs and face at age 33, and given six months to live, Caldwell went to work to break down the medical silos, which enclose so much medicine and hide so many research results. A new treatment being tested in Oregon, which he found, shrunk multiple tumors in Dewitt’s lungs and cheek and saved his life.

When Caldwell’s 2 ½-year-old daughter Chloe was given the wrong medicine in an emergency room, her heart stopped cold. Doctors said would live only a short time without a heart transplant. Caldwell and his wife went to work: They established a war room with computers and whiteboards and bored into the research. A therapy was found and Chloe, now nearly four, is doing well.

Hatamleh’s first target for the new, sweeping concept of exaptation is cancer.

You would think that cancer is well-researched, but Hatamleh believes the exaptation route is the way to go: “We want to break down barriers, go across industries and identify emerging technologies from various industries and explore their application in other fields.”

He believes he can half the death rate from cancer in 10 years by cross-pollinating technologies and therapies and using the kinds of techniques and ideas on display at his unique innovation conferences.

Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com and he’s based in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.

Martha Burk: Employees have 'religious' freedom, too

Via OtherWords.org

When Obamacare — aka, the Affordable Care Act — became law in 2010, it mandated coverage of birth control without co-payments.

Some employers didn’t like the rule, and Hobby Lobby hated it so much that the company filed a lawsuit to stop it. Company owners said they didn’t believe in contraception and claimed that covering it for female employees violated their religious freedom.

Understand, the Obama administration went to great lengths to exempt churches and church-related institutions from the rule, while still guaranteeing their female employees the right to birth control if they wanted it.

Then the Supreme Court stepped in, siding with Hobby Lobby and ruling that “closely held” corporations with religious objections could join religious employers in excluding birth control from their insurance plans.

Now the Trump administration has gone a giant step further. They’re now allowing any and all businesses, including publicly traded ones, to also cite “religious or moral objections” in denying their employees contraception coverage.

Wait a minute.

Corporations not only have religious freedom but now moral principles, too? I didn’t even know they went to church, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen one get down on its knees and pray.

On the other hand, I know women — who are actual people — have religious freedom under the Constitution, too. What about their right not to be forced to bow to their employers’ religious beliefs or highly suspect “moral” principles?

Massachusetts, California, and the ACLU have filed lawsuits to stop the rollback. Good luck. Besides Hobby Lobby, the conservative majority in the Supreme Court ruled years ago in the Citizens United case that corporations have constitutional rights, and they’ve consistently ruled in favor of their corporate buddies over women in employment discrimination cases.

On top of that, six of the nine justices are male, and most of them of rather conservative religious persuasions. The odds look to be stacked against women.

Expanding so-called corporate citizen rights deeper into health care could ultimately affect everybody, not just women.

Christian Scientists are opposed to all kinds of medical treatment, including for diabetes, cancer, and meningitis. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in blood transfusions. There are undoubtedly other religious taboos on medical procedures.

Enterprising businesses that want to save money could cite “religious freedom” to exclude virtually any medical treatment from their insurance plans. Surgery, antibiotics, immunizations — you name it.

Where will it end? We don’t know. Even if the lawsuits are ultimately successful, a decision could take years.

All I know is that I don’t want my neighborhood corporate citizen making my health care decisions.

Martha Burk is the director of the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO) and the author of the book Your Voice, Your Vote.