“Towards Precision Medicine Therapies and Biomarkers for Neurodegenerative Diseases”Dr. Nilüfer Ertekin-Taner, Professor and Enterprise Chair of Mayo Clinic’s Department of Neuroscience, explains the very latest research and treatments for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases before an April 2, 2024 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.

Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)

Dr. Ertekin-Taner gave the club some shocking figures on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease:

• $305 billion spent on the diseases
• 600,000 cases in Florida alone
• 12.5% of Florida residents over 65 suffer, the second highest in the country
• 18 billion hours of caretaker time

At Mayo Florida, she has more than 200 investigators working in her lab and supervises more than 250-scientists and trainees at the Florida campus.

“Our collective mission is to find cures and diagnostics for currently incurable and undiagnosable neurologic illnesses, like dementias, like Alzheimer's disease,” she said. “Dementia is the umbrella term, it means a person is having problems in their thinking, and it's interfering with their day-to-day life.”

She pointed out that while Alzheimer’s was first identified more than 100-years ago, it has only recently become recognized clinically. It was thought to be a normal part of aging, but now we know it is not.

Dr. Ertekin-Taner and her lab are looking for cures not only for Alzheimer’s but also Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), a disease that progresses faster and at a younger age than Alzheimer’s.

The investigators use genetics to get information about possible risk factors, but it does not give specific information.

“Basically, think of it like the general address. There is a fire so the firefighters are called, and we say there's a fire in this general region. That's the kind of information that these kinds of studies give us. But they don't tell us exactly which house is on fire. And they don’t tell us what caused the fire.”

While diagnosis has gotten better, there are still few cures.

“The answer again, lies in in the economy. The cost of putting a single drug on the market is on average over a billion dollars. So pharmaceutical companies cannot commit unless those drug targets are de-risked for them. And the groups that are going to really identify those drug targets and de-risk it for big pharmaceutical companies are academic groups. Places like Mayo Clinic and other places.”

Dr. Ertekin-Taner said Alzheimer’s, PSP, and the other forms of dementia differ from person to person. While Alzheimer’s is now treated as a single disease, she says it should be treated similarly to cancer with specific therapies for specific patients. Doctors need to apply precision medicine, which is diagnosing and treating the right patient with the right treatment at the right time.

Genes are not all researchers look to.

“There's also a big emphasis now on environment, the exposed zone. Where you were born, what you eat, what are your other risk factors, and education? What are the things that enrich your brain, and what are those that take away from your brain? Their relationship with genes matters. And this combination either puts you at risk for diseases... (for the rest of the Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/) A TeleDirections podcast

“The Radical Consequences of a Digital Economy” Bob Rice, Managing Partner of New Jersey-based Tangent Capital Partners, shares the revolutionary implications of Artificial Intelligence on global production, wages, competition, investments, and education before a March 21, 2024 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.

Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)

Bob Rice told the Club that the current digital revolution is making radical changes in the economy which will have radical societal consequences. The changes are occurring at a rate of speed that is hard, even for him, to comprehend.

He pointed out that the first digital camera was invented less than 50-years ago. With the popularity of the Internet and the Personal Computer, anyone can now transmit a photograph to half the world’s population instantly. “The latest iteration is Artificial Intelligence or AI, created by machine, and it’s just getting started. The advances and the consequences are mind-blowing and we have to be ready,” Rice said.

He then showed three brief videos that were created by computers solely with human text commands.

“They literally started with a blank screen with no pixels at all on the screen,” Rice said of the AI process. “Tyler Perry, the big movie guy in Atlanta, was shown this a month ago. He walked out and told The Hollywood Reporter ‘I'm putting my $800 million studio expansion on hold. Jobs are going to be lost.’”

He calls both the advances and the consequences “shocking.” Mr. Rice said we are seeing a “revolutionary revolution,” and he calls it that because it’s not happening in just one domain of human existence. It’s affected things such as the war in Ukraine, entertainment, and also medicine.

“Some of the medical advances that are coming out of this are absolutely mind blowing. The ability to create brand new antibodies that are proteins, specifically for your body, is happening right now.”

It’s a revolution that everyone will have access to.

“You don't need to be a specialist with 20-years of training to use this tool. You need to be able to speak or write something, and it will take care of it and do what you want it to do.”

He said that the Meta (formerly Facebook) open-source AI has been downloaded about 150-million times.

Mr. Rice also discussed human productivity and said the invention that most improved the world was the washing machine.

“Suddenly, electric washing machines freed up essentially half of humanity from six hours of drudgery every single day. And half of humanity was unleashed into things that were more economically productive,” he said, alluding that AI holds the same potential. (for the rest of the Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/) A TeleDirections podcast

“The Challenges of Leadership in Our Times” Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta discusses the growing challenges and turmoil facing the United States before a February 6, 2024 meeting of The Economic Club of Florida.

Show Notes (for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)

Leon Panetta briefly told the Club about his background including reminiscences of Floridians he had worked with in Congress in the late 1970’s and 80’s, Senator Lawton Chiles and Congressman Claude Pepper.  He recounted how his parents were immigrants from Italy in the 1930s and how they believed they could give their children a better life in the United States.  His father instilled in him the idea of service.

“I really felt it was important to give something back to the country.  And frankly, what I'm trying to do here with the Panetta Institute is trying to develop a new generation of leaders for our country. And man, do we need a new a younger generation of leaders in this country,” he said.  “The rewards in public service are not money or power, or having a name on the door.  The purpose of public service is to improve the life of people in this country.  And I felt that I could help improve the lives of the people.”

The former military Intelligence officer pointed to how recruitment across the military services is down.  “The reward in public service is a reward that goes to the heart of what our democracy is all about, which is that all of us owe a duty to country. But one of the things I'm sensing in young people is that they don't have that same drive that same sense of duty to country.”

Mr. Panetta deplores the lack of public service in young people today, and throughout his discussion, he suggested ways to get them more interested and working on improving lives.

“Looking to the future, what we really need to do with young people is establish a national service system that requires young people to serve this country, in some capacity, whether it's in education or conservation, or health care, or the military.  It would be a hell of a lot better for them to pay for college, working for this country than simply borrowing the money to go to college like they do now.”  That suggestion drew a big round of applause from the audience.

He added, “If we don't build a good future generation of leaders, we will continue to have problems with our democracy.” 
(for complete Show Notes, please visit https://economic-club.com/podcasts-and-summaries/)