In part one of this ASCO Education Podcast episode, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Oncology Center of Excellence Dr. Richard Pazdur talks with hosts Dr. David Johnson and Dr. Patrick Loehrer about his upbringing in Indiana, his family, and his circuitous route to oncology. If you liked this episode, please subscribe. Learn more at https://education.asco.org, or email us at education@asco.org.   TRANSCRIPT Dr. Pat Loehrer: Hi, I’m Pat Loehrer. I'm the director of the Center of Global Oncology and Health Equity at Indiana University. Dr. David Johnson: I'm Dave Johnson at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas. Pat, great to be back with another episode of Oncology, Etc, an ASCO educational podcast. We have a very special guest today, Dr. Richard Pazdur, from the FDA Oncology Center of Excellence. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. Dr. Pat Loehrer: This will be terrific. Dr. David Johnson: Yeah. You were telling me before we got started about a little event that occurred this week, maybe you want to elaborate on that for us. Dr. Pat Loehrer: Yeah, we always start out this by talking about books, and one of the books I'm drawn to today is a book called, The Emperor of All Maladies, which was written by Dr. Mukherjee several years ago. I want to read a little bit from this because it has pertinence. This is about a guy named John Cleveland. Dr. Mukherjee writes, he goes, ‘In 1973 Cleveland was a 22-year-old veterinary student in Indiana. In August that year, two months after his marriage, he discovered a rapidly enlarging lump in his right testis. He was whisked off to the operating room for surgery and returned with a scar and he was diagnosed with metastatic testis cancer. This was right around the time that Larry Einhorn came to Indiana University where he was treated with a three-drug cocktail of actinomycin-D, bleomycin, and oncovin ABO. And then he had a brief remission progressing and was treated with mithramycin mithrymicin. And then in October of 1974, he once again developed progressive disease, and Larry approached him about a new cocktail with the drug cisplatin, that had never been used before in combination, and Larry's thought was to put it together with another couple of drugs.” So, I'll just finish reading this. “In October 7, 1974, Cleveland took the gamble, he enrolled as patient zero for BVP, an acronym for the new regimen containing Bleomycin, Vinblastine and cisplatin. 10 days later, he returned for routine scans and the tumors in his lungs had vanished. He was ecstatic and mystified. He called his wife from the hospital phone. I can't remember what he said, but I told her the results. So, John was the first one cured of testis cancer. Back then it was a 5% cure rate. Today, it's 95%. He is really the hero of heroes. Last week, at this time, John had asked me to come to his hospital room because he was diagnosed with metastatic cancer of a different type. He knew that this was basically the final hours of it. And so he wanted to say goodbye to me, and it was the most touching reunion I had. Two days ago, John passed away. So, my thoughts are with him, especially his family. But also, when we think about heroes, John was one of them, and if it wasn't for him, and his first treatment, Larry might not have gone on and treated other patients with this regimen. This drug cisplatin was experimental back then it caused a lot of nausea and vomiting and didn't work in many tumors, but this was a drug that was really highlighted and approved for the treatment of bladder cancer so Hubert Humphrey could get treated, and then in testis cancer, and it's really one the really success stories of all success stories in terms of oncology, and it started out with this experimental drug from the NCI that was approved by the FDA.” So, this leads us to our guest today, Rick Pazdur who I've known for many years. He grew up in Calumet City, Illinois, which is famous as the home of the Blues Brothers and