covering South by Southwest 2017, brought to you by Intel.

Now, here's John Furrier.

>> Welcome back everyone, we are live at the Intel AI Lounge,

end of the day, day one at South by Southwest,

I'm John Furrier, this is theCUBE,

our flagship programming brought to the events

and extract a signal from the noise.

What a day it is here, it's the packed venue, AI Lounge,

with Intel, it's the hottest spot in South by Southwest,

of course, where our theme is AI for social good,

and our next guest is Bryce Olson with Intel,

and your title officially is, global marketing director

health and live services, but you are an amazing story,

cancer survivor, but a fighter,

you took it to technology to stop your cancer,

and also, a composer with your friend, called FACTS,

Fighting Advanced Cancer Through Song, the stories.

Welcome to theCUBE! >> Thank you,

it's great to be here, this is awesome,

this is amazing environment that we're in today.

But yeah, you're right, when you look at data,

genomics data, which is looking at your DNA,

and running that out and being able to understand

what could potentially be fueling disease,

that's the biggest of big data.

And when I was working at Intel,

I was in a non-healthcare oriented group,

and then all of a sudden, I got hit with cancer,

like very aggressive, advanced cancer.

And I went through the whole standard of care,

and I went through that one-size-fits-all

spin that wheel of treatments and hopefully

you get something kind of thing, nothing--

>> General purpose, chemotherapy, whatever, blah blah blah.

>> Nothing worked.

And I came to the point where I was start to come to terms

with the fact that I may not see my daughter

get through elementary school.

So, cancer's starting to grow again, I go back to work,

at this point, I only want to work in healthcare,

because, why would I want to do anything else?

I want to try to--

>> John: But you have terminal cancer at this point.

>> I have terminal cancer at this point,

but I'm not sick yet.

You know, I went through all the chemo and all that crap,

but I'm not sick yet.

So, I asked to get into Intel's healthcare group,

because I want to try to help healthcare providers

make this digital transformation.

They let me in, and what I found out kind of blew my mind.

I learned about this new space of genomics

and precision medicine.

>> Well, it turns out, hold on for a second,

you were telling me the story before,

but you skipped a step, it turns out

Intel has a lot of work going on,

so you come into Intel, you're like,

they open up the kimono--

>> Open up the kimono, and I learn about this new era

called, just basically genomics, so what is genomics?

Genomics, essentially, is a way

to look at disease differently.

Why can't we go in and find out what's fueling disease

deep in the DNA?

Because every disease is diagnosable by DNA,

we just have never had the technology,

and the science, combining together

to get to that answer before.

Now we do.

So I found out that Intel is working

with all these genomic sequencing companies

to increase the throughput so you can actually

take something that costs $2 billion dollars back in 2003,

and took 10 years to do, get it down to $1,000

and do it in a day, right?

So now, it democratizes sequencing,

so we can look at what's fueling disease and get the data.

Then I learned about Intel working with all these major

bioinformatics open stores and commercial providers,

the Broad Institute at MIT, Harvard,

largest genomic sequencing place on the planet,

about how they take that data and then analyze it,

get to what is really fueling disease.

And then I learn about the cool things

we're doing with customers, which I could talk about,

like actual hospitals. >> Well, let's hold on

for a second on that, your shirt says Sequence Me,

but this is really key for the audience out there listening

and watching, is that, literally 10 years ago

the costs were astronomical, no one could afford it.

Big grants, philanthropy-funded R&D centers,

now, literally, you had your genome sequenced

for thousands of dollars.

>> Well, so, and this is what happened, right?

I learned about all this stuff that Intel's up to,

and I get kind of upset.

I get kind of pissed off, right?

Because nobody's giving this to me.

Nobody's sequencing my cancer, right?

So I go back to the cancer center that I was working with,

this is January 2015, turns out they were getting ready,

they were perfecting their lab diagnostic test on this,

it was like a perfect storm, they were ready, I wanted it,

they gave it to me, turns out my cancer

grows along this particular mutated pathway

that we had no idea.

>> So the data was, so in your DNA sequence step one,

step two is you go in massive compute power,

which is available, and you go look at it,

and it turns out there's a nuance to your cancer

that's identifiable!

>> Yeah, a needle in that haystack, right?

The signal in the noise, if you will, right?

So there's a specific molecular abnormality,

and in my case, there was a pathway that was out of control,

and the reason why I say it was out of control is,

the pathway was mutated, but then

there's this tumor suppressor gene

that's supposed to stop cancer, he's gone!

So it's like a freeway of traffic--

>> So he's checked out, and all of a sudden,

this is going wild, but this is cancer

for everyone has their own version of this.

>> Yes they do. >> So this is now

a new opportunity.

>> Yes!

Now we understand what's fueling my unique cancer.

We took data, we took technology and science,

and we got to the point where we understand

what's fueling my cancer.

With that data, I find a clinical trial

testing a new inhibitor of that pathway.

>> So I just got to stop and just pause,

because it's very emotional, and first of all,

man, yours is an inspiration to me and everyone watching.

I'm looking at some sign this year at the Intel AI booth,

and it says, "Your amazing starts with Intel,"

this is truly an amazing story.

>> Yeah, thank you. >> It's really beyond amazing,

it's life saving!

>> And that's what happened to me.

>> This is now at the beginning, so take me through,

in your mind, where is the progress bar on this,

in the AI evolution, or when I say AI,

I mean like machine learning, compute,

end-to-end technology innovation.

It's available, obviously, when is it going to be mainstream?

>> Yeah, so, we're at a point right now where

we can go in, if you have advanced cancer,

we're at a point now where we can sequence

that person's cancer and find out what's driving it,

we can do that.

But where it's going to get problematic is,

look at my case.

The mutated pathway hypersegmented by cancer, right,

so prostate cancer, a common cancer,

now became a rare cancer, because we hypersegmented it

by DNA, and I went after a treatment that was targeted,

so when my cancer starts to grow again,

now I'm a rare cancer.

So how are going to find people that are just like me

out there in the world?

>> So your point about rare being,

there's no comparable data to look at benchmarking,

so that's the challenge. >> Yeah, no given hospital

will ever have enough data in this new molecular

genomics-guided medicine world to solve my problem,

because the doctors are going to want to look,

and they're going to say, "Who out there looks just like Bryce

"from a DNA perspective, uniquely?

"What treatments were given to people like that,

"and what were the outcomes?"

The only way we're going to solve that

is as all these centers and hospitals start amassing data,

it has to work together, it has to collaborate in a way

that preserves patient privacy,

and also protects individual IP.

>> Okay, so Bryce, let me ask you a question,

if you could put a bumper sticker or a soundbite around

what AI means to this evolution innovation

around fighting cancer and using data and technology,

what is the impact of AI to this?

>> So, where I'm kind of going with this analogy

is that without artificial intelligence

to sift through my data, and all the other

millions of potential cancer patients

to start getting DNA data, humans can't do it,

it's impossible, humans will not have the mental ability

to sift through reams and reams of DNA data

that exists for every patient out there

to look at treatments and outcomes and synthesize it,

we can't do it.

The only way someone like me will survive into the long term

will be through artificial intelligence.

Without it, I will extend my life, but I won't turn cancer

into a manageable disease without AI.

>> So the AI will extend your life.

>> Because AI is going to solve the problems

that humans can't.

When you have the biggest of big data--

>> Love that soundbite, love that, say that again!

AI solves the problems that--

>> AI is going to solve the problems that humans can't,

they simply, humans don't have the capability

to look at the entire genome, and all this other genomic,

molecular, proteomic, all this other data,

we can't make sense of it! >> Alright, so let me

throw something out at you, 'cause I agree 100%,

but also, there's a humanization factor,

'cause now algorithms are also biased by humans,

so what's your thoughts, given your experience,

the role of the human race, actual human beings,

that have a pulse, not robots or algorithms?

>> Yeah, so let me give you a real practical example.

So, the way that we fought my cancer

was through a targeted therapy.

Molecular abnormality, targeted drug.

The other way that people are fighting cancer

is through immunotherapy.

Wake up the immune system to fight it.

Guess what?

Right now, there are 800 combination therapies going on

with immunotherapy to try to stop people's cancer.

How the heck are we going to know

what is the right combination for each person out there?

Unless we have like an algorithm marketplace

where people are creating these,

and taking in predictive biomarkers,

prognostic biomarkers, looking at all the data,

and then pushing a button to help an oncologist decide

which of the 800 combos to use, we'll never get there.

So-- >> That's awesome.

So let me ask you a question, so for people watching

that are younger, like my daughter, she's 16,

my other daughter's a premed, she's a sophomore in college,

they're like, school's like old,

like, school's like linear, they get classes,

but this younger generation are hungry for data,

they're hungry, they want to, they're young,

they're what people do, they disrupt,

they're bomb throwers, they want to create value,

and so their incentive to go after cancer,