Deputy Branch Chief, Genetics Branch at NCI
“I see gardening as similar to science and research. You’re investing in something, taking care of it, and over time, you see incredible and miraculous growth,” said Dr. Javed Khan. When not gardening, Javed is researching how to turn his discoveries into improved outcomes in children with cancer. It’s challenging work, but he’s encouraged by the incredible pace at which we’re collecting and learning from huge databases thanks to past research and better technology.
Throughout his 27 years at the National Institutes of Health, Javed has seen technology rapidly evolve to support data generation for rare and difficult-to-treat cancers. His hope is that large-scale biological data will be collected from every single child with cancer to help find new and effective treatments for these children. That data, he says, should be available for everyone to use, which is why data sharing efforts like CCDI are so important.