Eric Topol
Dr. Eric Topol is an internationally renowned physician-scientist known for his pioneering work using artificial intelligence, deep data, and genomics in the practice of individualized medicine. He is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in medicine with over 340,000 citations across more than 1,300 peer reviewed articles. He is the bestselling author of three general audience books on the intersection of healthcare and technology and has written over 30 medical textbooks. Dr. Topol is the Executive Vice President and a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, the largest non-profit biomedical institute in the United States. He is also founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and a practicing cardiologist.
As director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, Dr. Eric Topol is leading the charge to revolutionize healthcare and radically improve human health through individualized medicine. Individualized medicine uses AI and genomic and digital data to tailor diagnosis, prevention, and treatment to the unique biological and social profile of the individual rather than to the “average” human of traditional medical science. He is the principal investigator to two large NIH grants totaling hundreds of millions of dollars that make this work possible: the All of Us Research Program in support of precision medicine and a Clinical and Translational Science Award that promotes innovation in medicine.
Topol’s bestselling books on the future of medicine include The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care, The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine is in Your Hands, and most recently, Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. Set for release in 2025 is his next book on healthy aging and the medical breakthroughs that make our ever-extending life spans possible. Dr. Topol is editor-in-chief of Medscape, an informational resource for clinicians and medical scientists, and hosts the platform’s Medicine and the Machine podcast alongside fellow Leigh Bureau speaker Dr. Abraham Verghese. He pens the Grounds Truths Substack to nearly 100k subscribers with a mission to deliver reliable scientific information in a growing sea of mis- and disinformation.
Prior to joining Scripps Research, Dr. Topol led the Cleveland Clinic to notoriety as the country’s #1 cardiac care center for 10 consecutive years and founded the clinic’s medical school, the Lerner College of Medicine. He was also commissioned by the UK to lead a review into how pioneering treatments and technologies can transform healthcare delivery through their National Health Service.
Among Dr. Topol’s many awards are the Simon Dack Award, the Andreas Gruntzig Award, and the University of Rochester Hutchinson Medal, the school’s highest honor. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the American Association of Physicians, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. He has been named Doctor of the Decade and was voted as the #1 Most Influential Physician Executive in the United States. Dr. Topol completed medical school at the University of Rochester, did his residency in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and his fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at Johns Hopkins University.
Topics
The Future of Medicine
Dr. Eric Topol has long had his eye turned to the future of medicine and has an impressive record of getting things right. His prescient bestselling books—The Creative Destruction of Medicine,The Patient Will See You Now, and Deep Medicine—each tackle an important merging of healthcare and technology that has since come to fruition. From the widespread usage of telemedicine, to increased patient autonomy and medical AI modeling, Topol seems to know what’s coming. In this evergreen presentation that captures the latest findings, Dr. Topol gives audiences a peek into his crystal ball to discover the innovations in life sciences, drug development, and technology that are poised to not only disrupt but truly enhance the healthcare space for patients and practitioners alike.
Artificial Intelligence and Deep Medicine
The doctor-patient relationship has suffered due to the big business approach that values efficiency over humanity. Physicians, burned out from the added responsibility as data clerks thanks to electronic health records, spend less time with their patients and are often distracted in the few minutes they do share. Patients feel shortchanged and doctors are dismayed by not being able to deliver the level of care their patients deserve. Dr. Eric Topol refers to this development as shallow medicine. Counterintuitively, he believes artificial intelligence can make healthcare human again, repair the doctor-patient relationship, and free up the bandwidth to return to the practice of deep medicine. In this talk based on his bestselling book Deep Medicine, Dr. Topol discusses AI’s potential to revolutionize healthcare while addressing current limitations and areas of concern such as bias and privacy.
Extending Our Healthspan: Living Well for Longer
Longevity is a hot topic these days but is making it to 100 years of age even desirable if it just equates to more years in pain, riddled with disease, spending most of our waking hours being poked and prodded through treatments? Thanks to the convergence of decades of biomedical and technological advances, soon we’ll be able to live healthier for longer. Whereas lifespan is the number of years we’re alive, healthspan considers the number of years we’re healthy and ailment-free. In this talk, Dr. Eric Topol explores the interplay of the five components of our healthspan extension toolkit—lifestyle, biological “omics” such as genomic sequencing and gut microbiomes, artificial intelligence, drugs and vaccines, and cell-based treatments—and the role each plays in giving us longer, healthier lives. While presenting the scientific breakthroughs that are adding more vibrant years onto our lives, the former anti-aging skeptic breaks down what we know, what remains unknown, and the bumps we’re likely to encounter along the way.
High Performance Medicine
At the center of Dr. Eric Topol’s work is the mission to revolutionize healthcare and radically improve human health. The goal: high performance medicine and care; the approach: individualized medicine. Individualized medicine uses artificial intelligence and both genomic and digital data to tailor medical care to the unique biological, environmental, behavioral, and social profile of the individual patient rather than to the “average” human of traditional medical science. As the average human being does not exist, our current generalized approach to medicine is failing our patients in many important ways. In this talk, Dr. Eric Topol shares the latest advances in the mission to make high performance, individualized healthcare a common reality.
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