Childhood cancer survivor from Melville advocates for funding for AI-driven pediatric cancer research
Survivor hopes federal support for AI tools can improve outcomes for children with cancer.
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A Melville cancer survivor is heading to Capitol Hill later this month to advocate for increased support for artificial intelligence tools that could help advance pediatric cancer research and clinical care.
Max Penzer was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer, in his right leg when he was just 10 years old.
"I didn't really know what was going on at all and I didn't really want to know what was going on," Penzer said.
Looking back on his treatment, Penzer said he tried to distance himself from the decision-making process as much as possible.
"I think I really went about my treatment of just trying to stay out of it as much as possible and not wanting to be involved in decision making," Penzer said.
After nine months of treatment, Penzer was declared cancer-free.
"This year, I'm very lucky to be 10 years with no evidence of disease, which is a really big accomplishment for me," he said.
However, Penzer said that only 70% of osteosarcoma patients respond to the available treatment. That reality motivated him to focus on helping others.
"Now, what can I do to help the people that don't respond in the advocacy front?" he asked.
On Sept. 18, Penzer will travel to Capitol Hill for Climb the Hill Day, where he plans to advocate for funding for the Accelerating Innovation for Kids with Cancer Act.
"It's really trying to make a consolidated front to use federal AI tools for pediatric cancer research and clinical care," Penzer said.
He said the effort is important because pediatric data is less accessible than adult data, while AI models also need to be trained using children's data to better support research into pediatric cancers.
"What we're really looking at are the tools being used in research," Penzer said. "So, potentially taking in a patient's specific genome or transcriptome and using artificial intelligence to really analyze that and get a much better understanding of a patient's specific disease."
Penzer hopes advances in AI-assisted research can help improve outcomes for children who are battling cancer and make a difference for patients who have not been as fortunate as he has been.
