After losing his wife, colon cancera New York man, has dedicated his life to fighting the disease and trying to protect other families from the same tragedy.
Roy de Souza, now 54, and his wife Aisha de Sequeira had three young children when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2017.
At the time, the family was living in India, where Mr. de Sousa ran a technology company and his wife headed an investment banking firm.
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“We had a good life there, and then she got diagnosed,” he said in an interview on FOX News Digital.
“She was only in her mid-40s.”
Roy de Souza is pictured with his wife Aisha de Sequeira, who was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2017. (Roy de Souza)
His wife’s first symptom was abdominal pain.
Despite multiple trips to the doctor, nothing happened, but the pain continued. Finally, a CT scan revealed signs of cancer.
”colon cancer “This is a difficult disease because it’s inside the body, so you can’t see it,” De Souza said. “This is a complex disease.”
The family immediately flew to New York, where De Sequeira underwent surgery at Sloan Kettering and began chemotherapy.
Doctors told the woman she was too young to undergo a colonoscopy. She was then diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer.
De Sousa was initially optimistic, but doctors told him his wife’s cancer had metastasized (spread) throughout her body and was impossible to treat.
The goal was to extend her life as much as possible.
“Surgery is only effective if the cancer has not spread or spread too far,” Dr. de Souza said.
determination to make a difference
Frustrated by his lack of options, de Sousa turned to the next thing. cancer research.
“My personality is that when I see something broken, I want to fix it,” he said.
traditional treatment He noted that the same approach should be used for all patients, but it won’t work for everyone.
Aisha de Sequeira ran an investment banking firm in India until she was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2017. “Cancer is different for every patient,” her husband, Roy de Souza, told FOX News Digital. (Roy de Souza)
“That’s because the cancer is different for each patient,” de Sousa told FOX News Digital.
“This disease is like a tree. It has different branches, and one drug may kill some of those branches, but not all of them.”
He added: “After researching all the different options and talking with all the doctors and experts, we decided to create software that analyzes a patient’s cancer cells and finds the different ‘branches’.”
“My personality is that when I see something broken, I want to fix it.”
Mr. de Souza used his background in technology to found a company called BreakBio, which aims to develop targeted therapies that are personalized to each patient’s disease.
Personalization is especially important for cancer, he noted.
“I don’t think we need to personalize every drug in the world, but cancer is different than infectious diseases,” he says. “It didn’t come from someone else. It grew within you.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted BlakeBio approval to begin clinical trials for colorectal treatment later this year.
team effort
Mr. de Souza’s wife was fully supportive of his efforts to launch BlakeBio, even though she was undergoing cancer treatment.
“She wanted to be optimistic,” he says. “She said, ‘You deal with this, talk to your doctor and see what you can do.’ That was her way of dealing with it.”
Roy de Souza and Aisha de Sequeira are pictured with their three young children. “She wanted to be optimistic,” De Souza said of his wife. (Roy de Souza)
The BreakBio team worked to develop a personalized vaccine designed to be used in conjunction with conventional cancer treatments.
De Souza noted that the term “vaccine” can be a bit misleading, since BlakeBio’s treatment attacks cancer rather than aiming to prevent it.
“We often refer to this as personalized cancer immunotherapy, but unfortunately the industry uses the term ‘vaccine’, which can cause confusion,” he said.
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This software uses machine learning. artificial intelligenceanalyzes the outside of cancer cells and identifies proteins called peptides.
“The machine learning then starts learning what peptides are on the outside of the cancer cells and creates a pattern for each patient,” de Souza said. “This needs to be repeated for each patient because the cancer-associated proteins are different for each patient.”
Mr. de Sousa, left, used his background in technology to found a company called BreakBio, which aims to develop targeted therapies that are personalized to each patient’s disease. He is pictured here with his wife. (Roy de Souza)
De Souza said personalized vaccines “train” the body to produce T cells, white blood cells that help fight infections and attack cancer targets.
Initially, Mr. de Souza’s wife began receiving some of BlakeBio’s treatments in Germany, where there were laws that more encouraged experimental treatments.
but, COVID-19 pandemic I was hit hard in March 2020 and was unable to travel.
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“She started going downhill and I realized how much the drugs were keeping her going,” De Souza said.
His wife ultimately lost her battle with cancer in December 2020, but that didn’t stop De Souza from continuing his own fight.
Potential challenges and limitations
Outside experts, including Dr. Avital Ghajeel, co-founder and chief scientific officer of the Connecticut-based cancer treatment company Real Health, believe that personalized cancer vaccines like the one BioBreak is developing I have high hopes for this.
“Personalized cancer vaccines are a promising and rapidly evolving type of immunotherapy,” Gajeel told FOX News Digital.
However, these types of treatments have some limitations and challenges.
“AI is revolutionizing cancer vaccine design, providing a faster and more targeted approach, resolving or mitigating some of the barriers mentioned above,” the experts said. (St. Petersburg)
“Tumors are often mixed bags of cells with different changes,” he says. “Because personalized vaccines target specific entities from a patient’s own tumor, the immune response may not be strong enough to eliminate the entire tumor.”
Gajeel noted there may also be manufacturing challenges.
“Creating a personalized vaccine is a complex process that requires analyzing a patient’s tumor and adjusting the vaccine accordingly,” he said. “This process is expensive and time-consuming and can delay or eliminate treatment.”
“AI is revolutionizing cancer vaccine design.”
Finally, some patients may not be candidates for personalized vaccines, depending on the stage or type of cancer.
But Gajeel is optimistic about the potential of AI-based personalized vaccines.
He said, “AI is revolutionizing cancer vaccine design, providing a faster and more targeted approach, resolving or mitigating some of the barriers mentioned above.”
Aisha de Sequeira, a wife and mother, finally lost her battle with cancer in December 2020. But that didn’t stop her husband, Roy de Souza, from continuing her own fight to help others. (Roy de Souza)
AI can use a patient’s specific tumor characteristics to design a vaccine tailored to that person’s unique cancer profile, potentially leading to more effective vaccines with fewer side effects, Gajeel added. Ta.
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However, AI also has some limitations.
“Training effective AI models requires large amounts of data. [for] All the parameters that affect success,” he told FOX News Digital.
“Also, it is not always easy to understand how AI models arrive at their predictions, which is critical to ensuring the accuracy and reliability of AI models.”
hope for the future
BreakBio’s initial focus is on colorectal cancer, which is the third leading cause of cancer-related death in men and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death in women, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).
“In my opinion, this is an area that urgently needs medical attention,” de Sousa said. “Colon cancer is hitting patients earlier and earlier, but it is not being solved.”
“If we can accomplish this, it would be a huge accomplishment for me personally,” de Sousa said. “I hope it will be effective for many people,” he said. (Roy de Souza)
The plan is to eventually apply this technology to many other types of cancer.
Although de Souza’s journey was sparked by tragedy, he said the experience was enriching.
“For me, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really make a difference and do something that changes things,” he said.
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“If I can achieve this, it will be a huge accomplishment for me personally.”
He added, “I hope it will be effective for many people.”
Looking to the future, De Souza particularly AI-based approach.
“For me, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really make a difference and do something that changes things.”
“Now we have computer systems that can analyze and come up with answers, which is really important for these personalized treatments.”
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“I think technology has evolved to the point where we can find problems and understand them, which means we’re much more likely to be able to solve them,” he told Fox News Digital.
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