SINGER GABRIEL PUSHES MEDICAL STREAMING
Former Genesis frontman plans to launch digital health service
Peter Gabriel has revealed his wife was cured of cancer using groundbreaking stem cell therapy, as he announced plans to beam treatments directly into people’s homes.
The former Genesis frontman’s wife Meabh Flynn, 47, a costume designer, developed an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma 18 months ago, which left her with agonizing tumours, the largest of which was the size of a melon.
After intensive chemotherapy failed, the family scoured the internet for the latest treatments and came across Drs. William and Vincent Li, of The Angiogenesis Foundation, based in Cambridge, Mass.
They suggested genetically engineering Flynn’s immune cells to fight the cancer — a therapy known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell, which completely cleared the disease in just a single infusion. Speaking about his wife’s illness for the first time at the Unite to Cure Fourth Vatican International Conference in Vatican City, the British singer, songwriter and musician said it had inspired him to create an iTunes-style health platform with the Lis.
Called The Tap, it would bring together all the latest technology from thousands of different companies to monitor health or treat conditions such as stroke, cancer, cardiovascular disease, kidney stones or wounds at home.
“My wife got sick about 18 months ago and we were very lucky because we knew Vince and Will Li and they led us through the maze that is cancer and eventually CAR T-cell and now she is remarkably well,” Gabriel said.
“We are enormously grateful for all the science and research that went into that, but it is being marketed at around US$1 million a head and we spent a lot of time in the hospitals thinking, ‘Well, is there anything we can do to make a difference there?’
“My dad was an inventor, so one of the things that got us interested when music turned into digital was to try and get a platform that would allow anyone to get any music and we created a thing called OD2 in 1999, four years before iTunes. The idea is to create a similar platform to allow new types of medicine to be streamed to the home so that the home becomes the treatment centre. Streamed medicine is about to hit, so let’s accelerate it and make sure the experts start talking to each other so it’s all in one place.”
At the conference, Gabriel urged scientists and doctors to come together to allow their work to form part of the platform.
Breaking into tears, the 68-yearold said: “You’re doing amazing work here. In the same way that your work saved the woman I love, a lot of what you do will save a lot more people if you can talk together.”
Writing on the conference blog, Flynn also urged patients to take advantage of new technologies and never give up hope.
“In those moments, you really need to trust your instincts,” she said. “I knew there were scientists out there doing the most extraordinary work and I was not put off by the fact it was a clinical trial.
“Stay focused, get the best advice and believe in yourself. Don’t let someone say, ‘There’s very little we can do for you’ and think that that’s the end. Because it doesn’t have to be.”
Streamed medicine is about to hit, so let’s accelerate it and make sure the experts start talking to each other.