David Agus Speaker Biography

World-Renowned Cancer Doctor, Health Futurist, and Best-Selling Author of #1 NY Times Bestseller, End of Illness

David B. Agus, MD is one of the world’s leading cancer doctors, researchers, medical futurists and technology innovators. Over the past 25 years, Dr. Agus has received acclaim for his innovations in medicine and contributions to new technologies that will change how all of us maintain our health. He’s also built a reputation for having a unique way of looking at the relationship of the body to health and disease. He explains, “Sometimes you have to go to war to understand peace. My work in the cancer war has taught me a lot about all things health-related, much of which goes against conventional wisdom.”

Bestselling Author

In his latest work, The Lucky Years: How to Thrive in the Brave New World of Health, you’ll find an assessment and consideration of the latest developments made in the field of general medicine in recent years. In his New York Times bestselling book, The End of Illness, (published in 2012) Dr. Augus tackles fundamental questions such as Can we live robustly until our last breath? Do we have to suffer from debilitating conditions and sickness? Is it possible to add more vibrant years to our lives? — challenging long-held wisdoms and dismantling misperceptions about what “health” means. With a blend of storytelling, landmark research, and provocative ideas, Dr. Agus presents an eye-opening picture of the complex and endlessly enigmatic human body, and all of the ways it works—and fails—ultimately showing us how a new perspective on our individual health will allow each of us to achieve that often elusive but now reachable goal of a long, healthy life. In A Short Guide to a Long Life, Dr. Agus believes optimal health begins with our daily routines. This book helps a person develop new patterns of personal health care, using inexpensive and widely available tools that are based on the latest and most reliable science.

New Technologies and Groundbreaking Science

Dr. Agus also offers insights and access to breathtaking and powerful new technologies that promise to transform medicine in our generation. In the course of offering recommendations, he emphasizes his belief that there is no “right” answer, no master guide that’s “one size fits all.” Each one of us must get to know our bodies in uniquely personal ways, and he shows us exactly how to do that so that we can individually create a plan to live longer. This groundbreaking approach will change not only how we care for ourselves but also how we develop the next generation of treatments and cures.

Education and Academia

Dr. Agus is a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering. He is the founding director and CEO of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC.. He received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He trained at Johns Hopkins and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. A staunch advocate for personalized medicine, he chairs the Global Agenda Council on Genetics for the World Economic Forum, and is co-founder of Applied Proteomics and Navigenics, two health-care technology and wellness companies.

Awards and Recognition

Dr. Agus’s honors and awards include the American Cancer Society Physician Research Award, a Clinical Scholar Award from the Sloan-Kettering Institute, and the 2009 Geoffrey Beene Foundation’s Rock Stars of Science Award.

David Agus Speaking Topics

The End of Illness

Dr. Agus offers insights and access to breathtaking and powerful new technologies that promise to transform medicine in our generation. In the course of offering recommendations, he emphasizes his belief that there is no “right” answer, no master guide that’s “one size fits all.” Each one of us must get to know our bodies in uniquely personal ways, and he shows us exactly how to do that so that we can individually create a plan to live longer. This groundbreaking approach will change not only how we care for ourselves but also how we develop the next generation of treatments and cures.

Future Health - A Vision for Personal and Corporate Health in the Next Decade

Healthcare is at a remarkable inflection point and advances are happening at a rapid pace, like never before. Dr. Agus will explain the landscape and the advances and discuss a program for the individual and corporation to benefit from these advances.

Worldwide Status of Health Care and Technology

This talk is geared to a more global view than just US. Dr. Agus will discuss some of the major obstacles facing health on both a local and international level.

Health as a Complex System

Dr. Agus will give a framework for understanding the body as a complex emergent system and how that fits into the big picture of health.

The Lucky Years

Bestselling author and friend David Agus unveils the brave new world of medicine, one in which we can take control of our health like never before and doctors can fine-tune strategies and weapons to prevent illness. In his first bestseller, The End of Illness, David Agus revealed how to add vibrant years to your life by knowing the real facts of health. In this book, he builds on that theme by showing why this is the luckiest time yet to be alive, giving you the keys to the new kingdom of wellness. Medicine is undergoing rapid change. In the old world, you followed general principles and doctors treated you based on broad, one-size-fits all solutions. In this new golden age, you’ll be able to take full advantage of the latest scientific findings and leverage the power of technology to customize your care. Only those who know how to access and adapt to these breakthroughs—without being distracted by hyped ideas and bad medicine—will benefit. Imagine being able to get fit and lose weight without dieting, train your immune system to fight cancer, edit your DNA to avoid a certain fate, erase the risk of a heart attack, reverse aging, and know exactly which drugs to take to optimize health with zero side effects. That’s the picture of the future that you can enter starting today. Welcome to The Lucky Years.