From Extraterrestrial Life To Cancer Research: Engineering Breakthroughs
By Mike Flanagan
The connections between searching for extraterrestrial life and exploring new cancer therapies probably seem few and far between. One involves searching the universe for signs of intelligence beyond our planet, while the other instead revolves around the hunt for sub-microscopic clues that a cell harbors mutations that bring about disease.
But from my early years working as an engineer at NASA, now to leading as a cofounder and Chief Technology Officer of an early-stage biotech startup, Delve Therapeutics, I’ve learned that there’s more connections than many may think, and that by looking at the links between the two, we can help to develop new treatments in a way that can make a meaningful change for millions of people impacted by cancer.
Searching For Signals
My post-graduate career began three decades ago at NASA, specifically at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) after finishing my Ph.D. at Caltech. While many at JPL were focused on unmanned rockets exploring outer space, my team was largely focused on trying to find and receive signals that may be coming from extraterrestrial life. It was a daunting task, but an exciting prospect. The work we were doing was aiming to reach through billions of miles or more, to try and pick up just the faintest trace of a signal.
When I was ready for my next opportunity, I joined Bell Labs which at that time was pioneering advanced communications between mobile phones and cell towers. So, in theory, I was working in the same capacity, looking to find and learn how to receive faint signals across a wide distance, only this time, the span was less in the billions, and more in the dozens of miles range. After Bell Labs, I was CTO at Arieso, a UK-based startup where we developed innovative, location-based products to help mobile service providers answer the question: based on signals from my customers, where am I having problems in my network?
It’s that same communications and signal-based approach that now applies to the work we’re doing at Delve Therapeutics at the New Jersey Bioscience Center, a strategic innovation center located in North Brunswick, NJ in the heart of the state’s research corridor. While working to develop potential immunotherapies for cancer, we’re actually dialing in to try and detect, and then respond to, the signals that mutated cells naturally give off, so the body can be trained to fight the disease right at its core. We know that the body has the underlying tools it needs to ward off cancer, but cancer is a cunning opponent skilled at evading its enemies. So, for targeted cancers, we can give the body’s immune cells a boost in detecting where the cancer cells are and help them destroy their tumor targets more effectively.
So, while it may seem like I made a change from deep space research, shifted into working in mobile communications, and then into a completely unrelated field of pharmaceuticals — I have actually built my career around finding and interpreting signals. I just started at the biggest scale in our universe, from between solar systems, and have been working my way down ever since, now focusing on the sub-microscopic space in and around cells. As Richard Feynman once observed at Caltech: “There’s plenty of room at the bottom!”
Benefits Of Researching And Thinking Like An Engineer
This all feeds into the mindset of an engineer. Most people in my position may wake up each morning feeling like a scientist, but most days I still feel like an engineer. The difference, from my perspective, is that a scientist will look at a phenomenon and wonder what’s going on and try to understand it, while an engineer will look at it and wonder how that same phenomenon can be used to achieve an outcome. I love science and the pursuit of knowledge, but at the end of the day if I can’t come up with something useful, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing this right.
This isn’t to say that the industry doesn’t need basic research and traditional academic contributors, it certainly does, but there’s also a significant opportunity for the unconventional. The path taken may not look like the usual one on paper, but it’s one that can lead to real-world results, and I think any industry can use more of that type of thinking.
Sometimes all it takes to make a breakthrough in research, in any field, is to look at the problem differently than anybody has before. Naturally, that’s easier said than done, but a good start can be coming from outside the traditional route. Coming from an engineering and deep-space background has given me a different perspective from many of my peers, and it is one that I’m excited to share in the name of creating a meaningful change in the lives of people living with cancer.
About The Author:
Dr. Mike Flanagan is the Cofounder and Chief Technology Officer of Delve Therapeutics, an early-stage biotech startup researching engineered cell therapies to treat certain forms of cancer. Based at the New Jersey Bioscience Center, a leading incubator in the region dedicated to life sciences and biotechnology companies, Dr. Flanagan is leveraging his background in deep space exploration and telecommunications to track down cancer’s signals.