David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, is Co-Founder and President of Every Cure and a physician-scientist at the University of Pennsylvania where he is one of the youngest tenured professors ever at Penn Medicine. He is also battling a deadly disease as a patient and alive thanks to a repurposed treatment he discovered and described in his national bestselling memoir ‘Chasing My Cure‘. He has advanced 13 more repurposed treatments for cancers and rare diseases and co-founded Every Cure to unlock more hidden cures, which has received over $100M from ARPA-H and TED’s Audacious Project.
One of the youngest ever awardees of multiple top NIH and FDA grants, Dr. Fajgenbaum has published over 100 scientific papers in leading journals, such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. He has been profiled by The New York Times, GMA, TODAY, and Forbes 30 Under 30 and awarded the 2016 Atlas Award along with then VP Biden, 2022 NDRI Service to Science Award alongside Nobel Laureates Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, and 2023 Philadelphia Citizen of the Year award. Dr. Fajgenbaum earned a BS from Georgetown University, MSc from the University of Oxford, MD from the University of Pennsylvania, and MBA from The Wharton School.
Beyond his coursework, David was a Division I college quarterback and founded and led a national grief support network during college and graduate school.
Talking Points
Chasing My Cure: Turning Hope Into Action When The Answers Run Out
Dr. David Fajgenbaum shares his powerful journey from critically ill patient to pioneering physician-scientist on a mission to cure diseases once considered unsolvable. This keynote explores how hope fuels action, how persistence can change outcomes, and how individuals and organizations can overcome overwhelming odds by pushing beyond the limits of what’s known.
Chasing My Cure: Turning Hope Into Action When The Answers Run Out
Leadership Under Uncertainty- Leading Forward When There Is No Playbook
Drawing on his firsthand experience battling a rare disease and reshaping how medicine searches for treatments, David unpacks what it means to lead when there are no clear answers. Audiences learn how to navigate ambiguity, build aligned momentum across teams, and make decisions when the stakes, and the unknowns, are high.
Leadership Under Uncertainty- Leading Forward When There Is No Playbook
Solving Big Problems Through Unlikely Partnerships
David illustrates how he built a global network of researchers, clinicians, and patients to drive rapid discovery, and how those same principles apply to companies looking to break down silos and accelerate outcomes. Audiences walk away with practical tools for aligning diverse stakeholders around a shared purpose.
Solving Big Problems Through Unlikely Partnerships
From One Disease to Every Disease: The Every Cure Mission
This talk introduces a transformative shift in medicine: accelerating cures not by inventing new drugs, but by finding new uses for the thousands that already exist. David explains the Every Cure model and why repurposing drugs could change the future of global health: unlocking treatments faster, cheaper, and for millions more patients.
From One Disease to Every Disease: The Every Cure Mission
Video
How Nearly Dying Helped Me Discover My Own Cure (and Many More) | David Fajgenbaum | TED
Physician-scientist David Fajgenbaum was dying from a rare disease that didn't have a cure — until he discovered a lifesaving drug that wasn't originally intended for his condition. In an astonishing talk, he shares how his near-death experience led him to cofound the nonprofit Every Cure, which is using AI to uncover hidden treatments in existing medicines in order to save lives.How A Doctor Cured His Own Terminal Disease | Dr. David Fajgenbaum
Dr. David Fajgenbaum, MD, is a professor of translational medicine and human genetics at the University of Pennsylvania. He explains how, unbeknownst to most doctors, many approved medications can successfully treat or even cure diseases other than the ones they are typically used to treat. He shares his story of escaping death from Castleman's disease by discovering a life-saving treatment using repurposed drugs that were approved for other purposes. Our conversation explores how researchers, physicians, and you—the general public—can explore novel treatments and cures to conditions the medical profession has deemed untreatable, including cancers. We also discuss the crucial role of mindset in battling diseases and the lesser-known use of compounds to promote health and longevity.Latest News
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