Today Rome sits down with a living legend: Dr. Lee Hood, CEO of Phenome Health, a trailblazer who helped launch the Human Genome Project and has spent 60+ years pushing medicine forward. This triumphant conversation shows how precision medicine—using your genome, your microbiome, your blood, and even your wearables—can predict risk early, prevent disease, and extend health span.

Dr. Hood shares how systems biology and P4 medicine (predictive, preventive, personalized, participatory) are moving us beyond “sick care” to true health care.

We dig into how blood is a “window” into the body’s organs, why multi-omic data plus AI can surface thousands of actionable steps, and how polygenic risk scores and early biomarkers can flag danger years before symptoms.

Dr. Hood explains practical wins: lowering biological age, catching metabolic trouble early, and building brain resilience well into our 80s and 90s. Most of all, he makes the future feel reachable—and worth fighting for.

Listen for these key takeaways:

- Prevention first: Use data (genome, blood, wearables) to spot risks early and act before disease starts.

- Simple steps matter: Food, sleep, movement, and targeted fibers can shift biology in the right direction.

- Measure what matters: Track biological age, metabolic health, brain function, and resilience over time.

- AI as a guide: Smart tools can translate complex data into clear, safe actions for doctors and patients.

Join us for a bold look at why the future of preventing disease is here now!

In this episode Kasey Walsh explains how simple social media connections grew into formal research collaborations, a nonprofit, and a patient‑owned data platform, all motivated by her determination to help her daughter Robbie, who was born with an AP-4 hereditary spastic paraplegia (AP‑4 HSP).

She has partnered with institutions like Boston Children's Hospital, the Broad Institute, and the University of Cambridge to move AP‑4 from case reports to research action.

Kasey co‑founded Cure AP‑4 and created WinSights to turn caregiver stories into research data that supports precision medicine. Her work helped find biomarkers, reclassify patients once thought to have cerebral palsy, and start drug‑repurposing studies that identified existing FDA‑approved medicines that showed activity in AP‑4 models.

She candidly shares their diagnostic journey to a diagnosis, tips for working with clinicians, and how families can help shape translational research.

Listeners who face a rare disease diagnosis will learn how to turn lived experience into real‑world evidence and join a community that helps accelerate precision medicine therapies for children and adults.

Key takeaways:

- Build community: online groups can lead to treatment opportunities and practical information to make daily life better for a family managing a rare disease.

- Own your data: patient‑stewarded health information powers precision medicine studies.

- Practical steps: seek genetic testing, connect with specialty centers, and link with advocacy groups (NORD, Global Genes).

META DESCRIPTION

Looking for hope after a rare disease diagnosis? Hear Kasey Walsh share how her daughter Robbie inspired partnerships with Boston Children's and the University of Cambridge to find treatment for AP-4 hereditary spastic paraplegia (AP-4 HSP). Learn how social media groups became real research teams, and practical steps families can take to find community, resources, and next actions to improve care for rare diseases. We help you learn the language and build confidence to advocate for a precision medicine approach to your health and wellbeing.

EPISODE SUMMARY

Rome experienced a career high talking with Dr. Otis W. Brawley, a globally recognized Medical Oncologist and Epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, about his work to reduce healthcare disparities.

Dr Bawley is a former Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of the American Cancer Society, and an author on the recent Report on the Status of Disparities in the United States 2025.

Rome gets to the heart of why his work has shown that people do not always get the same care inside the health system. Dr Brawley says giving people access to care is not enough. Many patients still get later diagnoses, slower follow‑up, weaker or older treatments, and fewer chances to join clinical trials. These are real, measurable differences caused by provider choices and are at the root of cancer disparities.

Key takeaways from this in-depth conversation about disparities:

• Care that causes disparities differs in clear ways, including delays in diagnosis and treatment inequity.
• Why systemic changes to protocols and measuring clinician adherence beats simple training to deter differential treatment.
• Practical solutions like patient navigation and equity metrics to reduce preventable deaths.

META DESCRIPTION

What if a doctor’s choice—more than the cancer—decides who lives? Dr. Otis W. Brawley, a globally respected voice from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, showed that black and brown patients often get worse care because doctors make different choices for them: fewer tests, slower follow‑up, less aggressive treatment, or no offer to join clinical trials. These choices come from wrong assumptions about what patients want, limits at busy or underfunded clinics, and they lead to later diagnoses and more deaths in communities of color. We need clear care rules, better tracking of who gets which treatments, and supports like patient navigation so decisions on the quality of care are fair for everyone.