M
y uncle was tall, athletic and an avid Jeopardy fan. When he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, it was shocking to see how quickly the disease affected his body and mind. He passed away less than a year later. I miss him so much.
So when I heard Laura Indolfi speak at TED2016, her words punched me in the stomach. A TED Fellow and biomedical entrepreneur, she talked about why pancreatic cancer is so deadly -- because the pancreas is located in the middle of the body, where cancer cells have a wide variety of vital organs they can spread to, and because tumors here have few blood vessels, which means chemotherapy drugs can't reach them. She shared a different approach -- localized drug delivery for pancreatic cancer. The idea her company is working on: embedding drugs in a small, flexible device that forms a cage around a tumor and delivers treatment as it biodegrades.
