Latest news with #KarenKnudsen
San Francisco Chronicle
09-07-2025
- Health
- San Francisco Chronicle
World's premier cancer institute faces crippling cuts and chaos under Trump administration
The Trump administration's broadsides against scientific research have caused unprecedented upheaval at the National Cancer Institute, the storied federal government research hub that has spearheaded advances against the disease for decades. NCI, which has long benefited from enthusiastic bipartisan support, now faces an exodus of clinicians, scientists, and other staffers — some fired, others leaving in exasperation. After years of accelerating progress that has reduced cancer deaths by a third since the 1990s, the institute has terminated funds nationwide for research to fight the disease, expand care and train new oncologists. 'We use the word 'drone attack' now regularly,' one worker said of grant terminations. 'It just happens from above.' The assault could well result in a perceptible slowing of progress in the fight against cancer. Nearly 2 million Americans are diagnosed with malignancies every year. In 2023, cancer killed more than 613,000 people, making it the second-leading cause of death after heart disease. But the cancer fight has also made enormous progress. Cancer mortality in the U.S. has fallen by 34% since 1991, according to the American Cancer Society. There are roughly 18 million cancer survivors in the country. That trend 'we can very, very closely tie to the enhanced investment in cancer science by the U.S. government,' said Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and a globally recognized expert on prostate cancer. 'We're winning,' Knudsen said. 'Why we would let up, I really don't understand.' 'It's horrible. It's a crap show. It really, really is,' said an NCI laboratory chief who has worked at the institute for three decades. He's lost six of the 30 people in his lab this year: four scientists, a secretary, and an administrator. 'If we survive I will be somewhat surprised,' he said. After a mandate by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Government Efficiency to slash contract spending by more than a third, the cancer institute is cutting contracts to maintain precious biological specimens used in its research, according to three scientists. 'The required contract cuts are going to be devastating,' a senior scientist said. On the NCI campus in Bethesda, Maryland, scientists describe delays in getting essential supplies — 'literally anything that goes into a test tube or a petri dish,' a recently departed clinician said — because of staffing cuts and constant changes in policies about what they can order. Even the websites that publish new evidence on cancer treatment and diagnosis aren't being updated, because HHS fired workers who managed them. And when NCI scientists do communicate with outsiders, what they say has been severely restricted, according to documents viewed by KFF Health News. Forbidden topics include mass firings, President Donald Trump's executive orders, and 'DEIA' – diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The turmoil at the National Institutes of Health's largest arm could haunt the country and the world for years to come. 'I really, really don't understand what they're trying to achieve,' said Sarah Kobrin, chief of NCI's health systems and interventions research branch. 'It just doesn't make sense.' 'Efforts that are lifesaving now are being curtailed,' one scientist said. 'People will die.' Years of bipartisan support Initially, some workers said, they thought the cancer institute might be spared. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called chronic disease — cancer is one — ' an existential threat ' to the country. Cancer research, with multiple NCI-funded breakthroughs in genetics and immunotherapy, has sidestepped the political minefields around other public health issues, like vaccination. 'People who care about cancer might be the biggest lobby in the country,' said Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, which has monitored oncology science and policy since 1973. Count Mike Etchamendy, 69, of Big Bear Lake in San Bernardino County as part of that lobby. Since 2013 he's flown to the East Coast scores of times to participate in five clinical trials at the cancer wing of NIH's Clinical Center. 'They call it the House of Hope,' Etchamendy said. Between drugs, therapeutic vaccines, and expert treatment for his rare bone cancer, called chordoma, he said, he believes he's gained at least 10 years of life. He's proud to have served as a 'lab rat for science' and worries about NCI's future. 'People come from all over the world to learn there,' Etchamendy said. 'You cut funding there, you're going to cut major research on cancer.' In response to a list of detailed questions from KFF Health News about the cuts and chaos at NCI, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the reporting amounted to a 'biased narrative' that 'misrepresents a necessary transformation at the National Cancer Institute.' Nixon declined to elaborate but said research into cancer and other health conditions continues to be a high priority 'for both NIH and HHS.' 'We are refocusing resources on high-impact, evidence-based research — free from ideological bias or institutional complacency. While change can be uncomfortable for those invested in the status quo, it is essential to ensure that NCI delivers on its core mission,' he said. Much of NCI's work is authorized by the National Cancer Act of 1971, which expanded its mandate as part of President Richard Nixon's 'War on Cancer.' Three of four of the cancer institute's research dollars go to outside scientists, with most of the remainder funding more than 300 scientists on campus. And Congress was generous. Harold Varmus, one of more than 40 Nobel laureates whose work was funded by NCI, said budgets were usually handsome when he was NIH director from 1993 through 1999. President Bill Clinton 'would say to me, 'I'd like to give you a bigger increase, Harold, but your friends in Congress will bring it up.' He'd offer me a 5% increase,' Varmus recalled, but 'I'd end up getting more like 10%' from Congress. Congress appropriated $2 billion to NCI in fiscal 1993. By 2025, funding had risen to $7.22 billion. 'Scrubbing of science' During a May 19 town hall meeting with NIH staff members, Jay Bhattacharya, the institute's new director, equivocated when asked about funding cuts for research into improving the health of racial and ethnic minorities — cuts made under the guise of purging DEI from the government. According to a recording of the meeting obtained by KFF Health News, Bhattacharya said the agency remained 'absolutely committed to advancing the health and well-being of every population, including minority populations, LGBTQ populations, and every population.' Research addressing the health needs of women and minorities is 'an absolute priority of mine,' he said. 'We're going to keep funding that.' But a study considering whether 'structural racism causes poor health in minority populations' is 'not a scientific hypothesis.' 'We need scientific ideas that are actionable, that improve the health and well-being of people, not ideological ideas that don't have any chance of improving the health and well-being of people,' he said. That comment angered many staffers, several said in interviews. Many got up and walked out during the speech, while others, watching remotely, scoffed or jeered. Several current and former NCI scientists questioned Bhattacharya's commitment to young scientists and minorities. Staffing cuts early in the year eliminated many recently hired NCI scientists. At least 172 National Cancer Institute grants, including for research aimed at minimizing health disparities among racial minorities or LGBTQ+ people, were terminated and hadn't been reinstated as of June 16, according to a KFF Health News analysis of HHS documents and a list of grant terminations by outside researchers. Those populations have higher rates of certain cancer diagnoses and are more likely to receive diagnoses later than white or heterosexual people. Black people are also more likely to die of many cancer types than all other racial and ethnic groups. Jennifer Guida, a researcher who focuses on accelerated aging in cancer survivors, said she recently left NCI after a decade in part because of the administration's DEI orders. According to several workers and internal emails viewed by KFF Health News, those included an HHS edict in January to report their colleagues who worked on such issues, and flagging grants that included DEI-related terms because they didn't align with Trump's priorities. 'I'm not going to put my name attached to that. I don't stand for that. It's not OK,' said Guida, who added that it amounted to a 'scrubbing of science.' Racial discrimination is one factor that contributes to accelerated aging. 'There are a growing number of cancer survivors in the U.S.,' Guida said, and 'a significant number of those people who will become cancer survivors are racial and ethnic minorities.' 'Those people deserve to be studied,' she said. 'How can you help those people if you're not even studying them?' In May, NCI informed leaders of the Comprehensive Partnerships to Advance Cancer Health Equity, a program that links 14 large U.S. cancer centers with minority-serving colleges and universities, that their funding would be cut. The project's Notice of Funding Opportunity — the mechanism the government uses to award grants — had been suddenly taken offline, meaning NCI staffers couldn't award future funding, according to three sources and internal communications viewed by KFF Health News. These 'unpublishings' have often occurred without warning, explanation, or even notification of the grantee that no more money would be coming. The cancer partnerships have trained more than 8,500 scientists. They're designed to address widely documented disparities in cancer care by having top medical schools place students from rural, poor, and minority-serving schools and community clinics in research, training, and outreach. Research shows that patients from racial and ethnic minorities receive better medical care and have improved outcomes when their clinicians share their background. 'I'm from an immigrant family, the first to graduate in my family,' said Elena Martinez, a professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California-San Diego, who leads one of the partnerships with colleagues at largely Hispanic Cal State-San Diego. 'I wouldn't be here without this kind of program, and there won't be people like me here in the future if we cut these programs.' Silencing the science communicators In early April, when the dust settled after mass firings across HHS, workers in NCI's communications office were relieved they still had their jobs. It didn't last. A month later, HHS fired nearly all of them, three former workers said. Combined with retirements and other departures, a skeleton crew of six or seven remain of about 75 people. 'We were all completely blindsided,' a fired worker said. NCI leadership 'had no idea that this was happening.' As a result, websites, newsletters, and other resources for patients and doctors about the latest evidence in cancer treatment aren't being updated. They include and NCI's widely used Physician Data Query, which compile research findings that doctors turn to when caring for cancer patients. Gary Kreps, founding director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication at George Mason University, said he relied on Physician Data Query when his father was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer, taking PDQ printouts when he met with his dad's doctors. 'It made a huge difference,' Kreps said. 'He ended up living, like, another three years' — longer than expected — 'and enjoyed the rest of his life.' As of May 30, banners at the top of the and PDQ websites said, 'Due to HHS restructuring and reduction in workforce efforts, the information on this website may not be up to date and pages will indicate as such.' The banners are gone, but neither website was being updated, according to a fired worker with knowledge of the situation. Outdated PDQ information is 'really very dangerous,' Kreps said. Wiping out NCI's communications staff makes it harder to share complex and ever-changing information that doctors and patients need, said Peter Garrett, who headed NCI's communications before retiring in May. Garrett said he left because of concerns about political interference. 'The science isn't finished until it's communicated,' he said. 'Without the government playing that role, who's going to step in?' A budget to 'destroy clinical research' Following court decisions that blocked some NIH grant cancellations or rendered them 'void' and 'illegal,' NIH official Michelle Bulls in late June told staffers to stop terminating grants. However, NCI workers told KFF Health News they continue to review grants flagged by NIH to assess whether they align with Trump administration priorities. Courts have ordered NIH to reinstate some terminated grants, but not all of them. At NCI and across NIH, staffers remain anxious. The White House wants Congress to slash the cancer institute's budget by nearly 40%, to $4.53 billion, as part of a larger proposal to sharply reduce NIH's fiscal 2026 coffers. Bhattacharya has said he wants NIH to fund more big, breakthrough research. Major cuts could have the opposite effect, Knudsen said. When NCI funding shrinks, 'it's the safe science that tends to get funded, not the science that is game changing and has the potential to be transformative for cures.' Usually the president's budget is dead on arrival in Congress, and members of both parties have expressed doubt about Trump's 2026 proposal. But agency workers, outside scientists, and patients fear this one may stick, with devastating impact. It would force NCI to suspend all new grants or cut existing grants so severely that the gaps will close many labs, said Varmus, who ran NCI from 2010 to 2015. Add that to the impact on NCI's contracts, clinical trials, internal research, and salaries, he said, and 'you can reliably say that NCI will be unable to keep up in any way with the promise of science that's currently underway.' The NCI laboratory chief, who has worked at the institute for decades, put it this way: 'If the 40% budget cut passes in Congress, it will destroy clinical research at NCI.'
CNN
08-07-2025
- Health
- CNN
World's premier cancer institute faces crippling cuts and chaos
The Trump administration's broadsides against scientific research have caused unprecedented upheaval at the National Cancer Institute, the storied federal government research hub that has spearheaded advances against the disease for decades. NCI, which has long benefited from enthusiastic bipartisan support, now faces an exodus of clinicians, scientists, and other staffers, some fired, others leaving in exasperation. After years of accelerating progress that has reduced cancer deaths by a third since the 1990s, the institute has terminated funds nationwide for research to fight the disease, expand care, and train new oncologists. 'We use the word 'drone attack' now regularly,' one worker said of grant terminations. 'It just happens from above.' The assault could well result in a perceptible slowing of progress in the fight against cancer. Nearly 2 million Americans are diagnosed with malignancies every year. In 2023, cancer killed more than 613,000 people, making it the second leading cause of death after heart disease. But the cancer fight has also made enormous progress. Cancer mortality in the U.S. has fallen by 34% since 1991, according to the American Cancer Society. There are roughly 18 million cancer survivors in the country. That trend 'we can very, very closely tie to the enhanced investment in cancer science by the U.S. government,' said Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and a globally recognized expert on prostate cancer. 'We're winning,' Knudsen said. 'Why we would let up, I really don't understand.' This article is based on interviews with nearly two dozen current and former NCI employees, academic researchers, scientists, and patients. KFF Health News agreed not to name some government workers because they are not authorized to speak to the news media and fear retaliation. 'It's horrible. It's a crap show. It really, really is,' said an NCI laboratory chief who has worked at the institute for three decades. He's lost six of the 30 people in his lab this year: four scientists, a secretary, and an administrator. 'If we survive I will be somewhat surprised,' he said. After a mandate by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Government Efficiency to slash contract spending by more than a third, the cancer institute is cutting contracts to maintain precious biological specimens used in their research, according to three scientists. 'The required contract cuts are going to be devastating,' a senior scientist said. On the NCI campus in Bethesda, Maryland, scientists describe delays in getting essential supplies — 'literally anything that goes into a test tube or a petri dish,' a recently departed clinician said — because of staffing cuts and constant changes in policies about what they can order. Even the websites that publish new evidence on cancer treatment and diagnosis aren't being updated, because HHS fired workers who managed them. And when NCI scientists do communicate with outsiders, what they say has been severely restricted, according to documents viewed by KFF Health News. Forbidden topics include mass firings, President Donald Trump's executive orders, and 'DEIA' – diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The turmoil at the National Institutes of Health's largest arm could haunt the country and the world for years to come. 'I really, really don't understand what they're trying to achieve,' said Sarah Kobrin, chief of NCI's health systems and interventions research branch. 'It just doesn't make sense.' 'Efforts that are lifesaving now are being curtailed,' one scientist said. 'People will die.' Initially, some workers said, they thought the cancer institute might be spared. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called chronic disease — cancer is one — 'an existential threat' to the country. Cancer research, with multiple NCI-funded breakthroughs in genetics and immunotherapy, has sidestepped the political minefields around other public health issues, like vaccination. 'People who care about cancer might be the biggest lobby in the country,' said Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, which has monitored oncology science and policy since 1973. Count Mike Etchamendy, 69, of Big Bear Lake, California, as part of that lobby. Since 2013 he's flown to the East Coast scores of times to participate in five clinical trials at the cancer wing of NIH's Clinical Center. 'They call it the House of Hope,' Etchamendy said. Between drugs, therapeutic vaccines, and expert treatment for his rare bone cancer, called chordoma, he said, he believes he's gained at least 10 years of life. He's proud to have served as a 'lab rat for science' and worries about NCI's future. 'People come from all over the world to learn there,' Etchamendy said. 'You cut funding there, you're going to cut major research on cancer.' In response to a list of detailed questions from KFF Health News about the cuts and chaos at NCI, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the reporting amounted to a 'biased narrative' that 'misrepresents a necessary transformation at the National Cancer Institute.' Nixon declined to elaborate but said research into cancer and other health conditions continues to be a high priority 'for both NIH and HHS.' 'We are refocusing resources on high-impact, evidence-based research — free from ideological bias or institutional complacency. While change can be uncomfortable for those invested in the status quo, it is essential to ensure that NCI delivers on its core mission,' he said. Much of NCI's work is authorized by the National Cancer Act of 1971, which expanded its mandate as part of President Richard Nixon's 'War on Cancer.' Three of four of the cancer institute's research dollars go to outside scientists, with most of the remainder funding more than 300 scientists on campus. And Congress was generous. Harold Varmus, one of more than 40 Nobel laureates whose work was funded by NCI, said budgets were usually handsome when he was NIH director from 1993 through 1999. President Bill Clinton 'would say to me, 'I'd like to give you a bigger increase, Harold, but your friends in Congress will bring it up.' He'd offer me a 5% increase,' Varmus recalled, but 'I'd end up getting more like 10%' from Congress. Congress appropriated $2 billion to NCI in fiscal 1993. By 2025, funding had risen to $7.22 billion. During a May 19 town hall meeting with NIH staff members, Jay Bhattacharya, the institute's new director, equivocated when asked about funding cuts for research into improving the health of racial and ethnic minorities — cuts made under the guise of purging DEI from the government. According to a recording of the meeting obtained by KFF Health News, Bhattacharya said the agency remained 'absolutely committed to advancing the health and well-being of every population, including minority populations, LGBTQ populations, and every population.' Research addressing the health needs of women and minorities is 'an absolute priority of mine,' he said. 'We're going to keep funding that.' But a study considering whether 'structural racism causes poor health in minority populations' is 'not a scientific hypothesis.' 'We need scientific ideas that are actionable, that improve the health and well-being of people, not ideological ideas that don't have any chance of improving the health and well-being of people,' he said. That comment angered many staffers, several said in interviews. Many got up and walked out during the speech, while others, watching remotely, scoffed or jeered. Several current and former NCI scientists questioned Bhattacharya's commitment to young scientists and minorities. Staffing cuts early in the year eliminated many recently hired NCI scientists. At least 172 National Cancer Institute grants, including for research aimed at minimizing health disparities among racial minorities or LGBTQ+ people, were terminated and hadn't been reinstated as of June 16, according to a KFF Health News analysis of HHS documents and a list of grant terminations by outside researchers. Those populations have higher rates of certain cancer diagnoses and are more likely to be diagnosed later than white or heterosexual people. Black people are also more likely to die of many cancer types than all other racial and ethnic groups. Jennifer Guida, a researcher who focuses on accelerated aging in cancer survivors, said she recently left NCI after a decade in part because of the administration's DEI orders. According to several workers and internal emails viewed by KFF Health News, those included an HHS edict in January to report their colleagues who worked on such issues, and flagging grants that included DEI-related terms because they didn't align with Trump's priorities. 'I'm not going to put my name attached to that. I don't stand for that. It's not OK,' said Guida, who added that it amounted to a 'scrubbing of science.' Racial discrimination is one factor that contributes to accelerated aging. 'There are a growing number of cancer survivors in the U.S.,' Guida said, and 'a significant number of those people who will become cancer survivors are racial and ethnic minorities.' 'Those people deserve to be studied,' she said. 'How can you help those people if you're not even studying them?' In May, NCI informed leaders of the Comprehensive Partnerships to Advance Cancer Health Equity, a program that links 14 large U.S. cancer centers with minority-serving colleges and universities, that their funding would be cut. The project's Notice of Funding Opportunity — the mechanism the government uses to award grants — had been suddenly taken offline, meaning NCI staffers couldn't award future funding, according to three sources and internal communications viewed by KFF Health News. These 'unpublishings' have often occurred without warning, explanation, or even notification of the grantee that no more money would be coming. The cancer partnerships have trained more than 8,500 scientists. They're designed to address widely documented disparities in cancer care by having top medical schools place students from rural, poor, and minority-serving schools and community clinics in research, training, and outreach. Research shows that patients from racial and ethnic minorities receive better medical care and have improved outcomes when their clinicians share their background. 'I'm from an immigrant family, the first to graduate in my family,' said Elena Martinez, professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California-San Diego, who leads one of the partnerships with colleagues at largely Hispanic Cal State-San Diego. 'I wouldn't be here without this kind of program, and there won't be people like me here in the future if we cut these programs.' In early April, when the dust settled after mass firings across HHS, workers in NCI's communications office were relieved they still had their jobs. It didn't last. A month later, HHS fired nearly all of them, three former workers said. Combined with retirements and other departures, a skeleton crew of six or seven remain of about 75 people. 'We were all completely blindsided,' a fired worker said. NCI leadership 'had no idea that this was happening.' As a result, websites, newsletters, and other resources for patients and doctors about the latest evidence in cancer treatment aren't being updated. They include and NCI's widely used Physician Data Query, which compile research findings that doctors turn to when caring for cancer patients. Gary Kreps, founding director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication at George Mason University, said he relied on Physician Data Query when his father was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer, taking PDQ printouts when he met with his dad's doctors. 'It made a huge difference,' Kreps said. 'He ended up living, like, another three years' — longer than expected — 'and enjoyed the rest of his life.' As of May 30, banners at the top of the and PDQ websites said, 'Due to HHS restructuring and reduction in workforce efforts, the information on this website may not be up to date and pages will indicate as such.' The banners are gone, but neither website was being updated, according to a fired worker with knowledge of the situation. Outdated PDQ information is 'really very dangerous,' Kreps said. Wiping out NCI's communications staff makes it harder to share complex and ever-changing information that doctors and patients need, said Peter Garrett, who headed NCI's communications before retiring in May. Garrett said he left because of concerns about political interference. 'The science isn't finished until it's communicated,' he said. 'Without the government playing that role, who's going to step in?' Following court decisions that blocked some NIH grant cancellations or rendered them 'void' and 'illegal,' NIH official Michelle Bulls in late June told staffers to stop terminating grants. However, NCI workers told KFF Health News they continue to review grants flagged by NIH to assess whether they align with Trump administration priorities. Courts have ordered NIH to reinstate some terminated grants, but not all of them. At NCI and across NIH, staffers remain anxious. The White House wants Congress to slash the cancer institute's budget by nearly 40%, to $4.53 billion, as part of a larger proposal to sharply reduce NIH's fiscal 2026 coffers. Bhattacharya has said he wants NIH to fund more big, breakthrough research. Major cuts could have the opposite effect, Knudsen said. When NCI funding shrinks, 'it's the safe science that tends to get funded, not the science that is game changing and has the potential to be transformative for cures.' Usually the president's budget is dead on arrival in Congress, and members of both parties have expressed doubt about Trump's 2026 proposal. But agency workers, outside scientists, and patients fear this one may stick, with devastating impact. It would force NCI to suspend all new grants or cut existing grants so severely that the gaps will close many labs, said Varmus, who ran NCI from 2010 to 2015. Add that to the impact on NCI's contracts, clinical trials, internal research, and salaries, he said, and 'you can reliably say that NCI will be unable to keep up in any way with the promise of science that's currently underway.' The NCI laboratory chief, who has worked at the institute for decades, put it this way: 'If the 40% budget cut passes in Congress, it will destroy clinical research at NCI.' KFF Health News Correspondent Rae Ellen Bichell contributed to this report. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
CNBC
18-06-2025
- Health
- CNBC
CEO of Sean Parker's breakthrough cancer drug institute on leading new race for cure
Karen Knudsen did not grow up in a scientifically centered home. She grew up in a military family. But at an early age, as a "naturally curious" kid, she came to love the experience of discovery and gravitated toward math and science. That led Knudsen to assume she would one day become a medical doctor. But her career went in another scientific direction, starting with a stint as a summer research intern working in the lab at the National Cancer Institute during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. "There was so much interest in trying to understand retrovirus like HIV, and so I went to a lab that was actually using retrovirus as a way to study cancer," she recalled in a recent interview with CNBC's Julia Boorstin for the CNBC Changemakers Spotlight series (Knudsen was named to the inaugural CNBC Changemakers list in 2024). "It got me very interested in that direct line. How does what I'm doing right now in the laboratory have an opportunity to impact a life, and I got hooked, and I never looked back," she said. Knudsen's experience as an oncology researcher at large health care systems, and seeing many mergers taking place around her, led to the realization that it might help to know more about the business of health care. She chose to pursue an MBA. "I'm not sure I'll forget the look on my husband when I came home one day and said, 'I'm going to get my MBA'," Knudsen recalled. "That was probably one of the more unexpected decisions." Ultimately, it led to Knudsen becoming the first female CEO of the more-than-century-old American Cancer Society, though she says it's even more important that she was the first CEO for the organization to come from oncology research. Under Knudsen's leadership, ACS's revenue increased by over 30%. Recently, Knudsen assumed the CEO post at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy — created by Sean Parker, Facebook's first president and the tech entrepreneur behind breakthrough ideas like Napster — where a new philanthropy-meets-venture-capital business model that aligns with Knudsen's lifelong interest in discovery is being built. The mission hasn't changed: "In the U.S., we have 2.1 million Americans that are going to get a new cancer diagnosis this year, and unfortunately, 600,000 plus people who will die from one of the 200 diseases we call cancer," she said. While there has been a 34% decline in cancer mortality since 1991, primarily attributed to earlier detection and preventative health practices, Knudsen's new role places her at the forefront of efforts to fund a new generation of breakthrough cancer drugs. Knudsen spoke with CNBC's Boorstin about how she reached this stage of her career, and the lessons she has learned from a lifetime devoted to experimentation. Here are some highlights from the full video interview. As a scientist, Knudsen says, "You get very comfortable with hypothesis generation and testing," and that is in some ways similar to a business executive trying to figure out what is going to come next in their market, and how to remain successful as conditions change. Scientists get comfortable developing a set of success metrics that enable them to know quickly whether it's time to quit on a hypothesis or move ahead. Knudsen says that is part of the "overlapping mindset between being a scientist and being a business person" which has helped her to succeed as she moved from research into executive leadership. "It made the process of developing a set of success metrics and creating a business strategy that tells you when you may be onto something, or not, fairly easy," she said. As a researcher within health systems who saw firsthand how a wave of consolidation could reshape entities and raise the question of how every person, process and practice might need to change, Knudsen says you need to be ready to identify not only what works but also what needs to go away. Coming into the CEO post at ACS was "like coming into a fresh merger that was in need of business transformation," she said. "Finding opportunities and fixing what needs repairing is often the hardest part of leadership," she added. Knudsen took a hard look at a bureaucracy that over more than a century had grown into 12 separate organizations, with 12 CEOs and 12 strategies, and she made significant changes to streamline the operation. It wasn't all about rooting out the inefficiencies, though. "I was on the road 49 weeks of the year for four years in a row, because you really needed to be there to see what was so good in these various areas, and apply that to the rest of the organization," Knudsen said. Her larger point is that a lifetime in research has made her a leader who sees change as a constant. "Because medicine is changing, science is changing, technology will change ... It's okay to transform and to constantly iterate," she said. Sean Parker comes out of the Silicon Valley "move fast and break things" world of success, and Knudsen says she had learned to be "a little more confident at risk-taking" over the years. Working with Parker, who was the first president of Facebook and co-founder of Napster, is the culmination of the risk-taking business side of her mindset. "He's unafraid of thinking differently," Knudsen said, adding that he still embodies the idea that "if we're failing, let's fail fast." More specifically, she said Parker identified that lack of access to capital was a major impediment to progress in the fight against cancer, and that was holding the risk takers back from doing what they do best. "The whole philosophy of the Parker Institute is to, step one, collect the best brains. Give them investment in funding to do the high risk, high gain, cutting-edge research, which could fail but could also dramatically transform cancer therapy," she said. Founded in 2016 by Parker to turn all cancers into "curable diseases," the institute supports clinical testing, startup formation and incubation, and drug commercialization. In all, PICI has supported the work of 1,000 researchers and helped to create a $4 billion venture capital portfolio that includes 17 biotech companies. "I think it's because we've de-risked the science from the very beginning," Knudsen said. "We're not waiting for someone to pitch for us. So I'm feeling very bullish about the ability to crank this wheel," she said. Knudsen has had many mentors throughout her journey. One she cited was Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, who she says was a "fountain of knowledge" to her. But as CEO of the American Cancer Society, she surrounded herself "with CEOs from all walks of life. I had a CEOs council that was hot dial," Knudsen said. "There are some things you just really need to talk to other CEOs about." She also emphasized that women pursuing success should expect to have to fight even harder for female representation the higher they ascend up a professional ladder. Statistically, that is the case whether in the business or academic world. More than 50% of both MD and PhD programs are filled with women, but only 12% become full professors, department chairs or deans. In the business world, 10% of women hold CEO positions in S&P 500 companies; and approximately 12% in VC-backed companies and 13% at health-care firms. The hurdles, whether it is related to gender, the inherent risk of failure in scientific endeavors, or lack of access to capital, are barriers that Knudsen's mission has helped her to overcome. "What I've always wanted to do, whether it's as a scientist, whether it's as a health executive, the CEO of the American Cancer Society or now the Parker Institute, it's to get innovation to people," she said. "We're at this moment in time where there is so much discovery that's happening, the pace of change is truly logarithmic, and yet, too many great ideas don't ever make it off the laboratory floor."
