There’s this phrase Penn and I say a lot when we’re overwhelmed—“It’s okay, we’re not saving lives.” It’s our go-to mantra when a video we publish flops or we can’t seem to get the lyrics exactly right. But this week on the Laugh Lines podcast, we talk to a man who actually is saving lives. Thousands of them. And he needs us to help spread the word.
Dr. David Fajgenbaum is the founder ofEvery Cure, a nonprofit that’s on a mission to do something that sounds impossible—use already-approved drugs to treat diseases they weren’t originally made for. David’s story is one of those that grabs your heart and doesn’t let go. He was a healthy med student—literally training to save lives—when his own body suddenly turned on him. Out of nowhere, his organs started failing one by one, and he was so sick his family read him his last rites multiple times.
Using AI For Good
Eventually diagnosed with a rare disease called Castleman disease, David refused to accept that there was no cure. When no existing treatment worked, he hunted through his own blood samples and repurposed an old drug meant for organ transplant patients. He saved his own life. David has now been in remission for over a decade, and instead of walking away to enjoy that miracle, he’s made it his life’s mission to do the same for others.
Every Cure is kind of like the matchmaker we didn’t know we needed—pairing forgotten or overlooked medications with diseases that are desperate for treatment. They’re using AI to search 75 million possible drug-disease combinations. And they’re finding things. (AI for good – yay!) Like the possibility of lidocaine (yep, the stuff your dentist uses) improving survival rates in breast cancer patients. Or a folate-based treatment helping non-verbal kids with autism say their first words. (Disclaimer: These are all in clinical trials, but the results are promising.)
Let’s Spread The Word
The craziest part about all this for me? These are affordable drugs. They’re already out there. No new billion-dollar development process. Just repurposing. But because they’re generic, there’s no big pharma marketing machine behind them. No Super Bowl ads. No pharmaceutical reps talking to doctors. So what can we do?
Spread the word. Seriously, tell someone. Share Every Cure’s website or send this podcast to a friend. David and his team aren’t just changing the way we treat disease—they’re changing how we think about medicine. We’ve all joked about how silly stuff goes viral on the internet (including, let’s be honest, some of our own videos). But this? This is something worth shouting about. Let’s be part of every cure.
