One of the Deadliest Cancers in America May Have Met Its Match

Plain English with Derek Thompson

The Ringer

News, News Commentary

4.7 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2026

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hard to detect and almost impossible to treat, pancreatic cancer has long been one of medicine’s most ruthless killers. For decades, it’s been the cancer that science couldn’t crack. But that might be starting to change. Recently, cancer researchers have announced a series of breakthroughs that, taken together, sound almost too good to be true: a drug that targets the “undruggable” gene behind most pancreatic tumors, a personalized mRNA vaccine that teaches the immune system to recognize pancreatic cancer as an enemy, and, now, an AI program that can spot the elusive disease years before doctors typically find it. So is this breakthrough a real turning point? Or another case of medical hype outrunning reality? On today’s episode, Dr. Ajit Goenka of the Mayo Clinic joins Derek to walk through the science behind the latest advances in cancer detection and what they could mean for the future of health care. They discuss Dr. Goenka’s new research using artificial intelligence to detect pancreatic cancer earlier than ever before … and whether machines might soon see what doctors can’t. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Dr. Ajit Goenka Producer: Devon Baroldi Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today
0:06.2	Some follow the noise.
0:08.1	Bloomberg follows the money,
0:09.9	whether it's the funds fueling AI
0:11.4	or crypto's trillion-dollar swings.
0:13.9	There's a money side to every story.
0:16.5	Get the money side of the story.
0:18.6	Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. Today, one of the top scientific
0:26.7	breakthroughs of the year is in the war on cancer. Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers
0:32.5	we know. It killed more than 50,000 Americans last year, most of them within 12 months of the diagnosis.
0:40.8	It is hard to detect, aggressive once it shows itself, and brutally indifferent to standard chemotherapy.
0:47.7	By the time most patients learn they have it, it is already too late.
0:51.7	Millions of people around the world have, like me,
0:55.2	lost parents, siblings, or children to this disease.
0:59.8	There are two reasons why pancreatic cancer has evaded modern science.
1:04.4	The first is genetic.
1:06.2	Most pancreatic cancers are driven by mutation in a gene called K-RAS.
1:11.5	And for 40 years, K-RAS has been considered undruggable, a smooth, slippery target that no doctor's
1:18.4	molecule can grab onto.
1:20.7	The second reason is our immune system.
1:23.6	Pancredic cancers carry relatively few mutations, which means they don't wave many red flags
1:28.6	for our T-sales to go out and kill.
	...

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