Unlocking Access to Cancer Care with Repurposed Generic Drugs and AI

Drug repurposing expands therapeutic possibilities by finding new uses for existing drugs. Dr. Laura Kleiman will discuss how repurposing generic drugs can rapidly create low-cost cancer treatments, sharing examples that provide accessible and affordable options for patients today while also driving new drug development. Her keynote presentation will highlight the tremendous opportunities in drug repurposing for cancer, addressing challenges such as regulatory hurdles, limited commercial incentives and the need for cross-sector collaboration.

Dr. Kleiman will describe Reboot Rx’s AI-driven approach and their prostate cancer project, which synthesized data from 16,000 studies and dozens of non-cancer generics already clinically evaluated for prostate cancer. She will share how this work identified top opportunities advancing toward clinical adoption and discuss Reboot Rx’s expanding pipeline across multiple cancer types. Dr. Kleiman will present a vision for a new regulatory pathway to accelerate adoption of repurposed generic drugs and expand access to life-saving treatments worldwide.

Bio

Dr. Laura Kleiman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Reboot Rx, the nonprofit accelerating the development of affordable cancer treatments by repurposing generic drugs using their Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. The Reboot Rx team — composed of experts in oncology drug development, AI, and policy — is redefining the standard of care for patients who need effective and accessible treatments now.

Prior to founding Reboot Rx, Dr. Kleiman was a Scientific Research Director at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She earned a PhD in Computational and Systems Biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kleiman is a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Entrepreneur and Henri Termeer Fellow. Under Dr. Kleiman’s leadership, Reboot Rx’s groundbreaking work has attracted support from philanthropists; award recognition from several organizations; and features in Forbes, The Boston Globe, Inside Philanthropy and more.

Digital Transformation in Pharmacology: Applications of Responsible AI for the Next Generation of Therapeutic Research

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing scientific research across countless fields, including in pharmaceutical research and experimental therapeutics. New GPTs and Large Multimodal Models offer unprecedented opportunities to accelerate drug discovery, optimize clinical trials, and personalize medicine. This keynote address will explore the transformative potential of AI across the drug development pipeline, highlighting its ability to process and analyze vast and varied datasets with speed and accuracy unattainable by traditional methods.

AI’s role in designing and optimizing clinical trials—through patient stratification, predictive analytics, and real-time monitoring—will also be discussed, with examples of how these innovations are reducing costs, risk and timelines. Special focus will be placed on ethical considerations, data security, and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to ensure AI’s responsible and effective application. It will also consider workforce development efforts to ensure appropriate training and upskilling for today’s workforce and the next generation.

Camille Crittenden, PhD, is the executive director of CITRIS and the Banatao Institute and co-founder of the CITRIS Policy Lab and EDGE (Expanding Diversity and Gender Equity) in Tech at University of California. She served as chair of the California Blockchain Working Group in 2019–20 and co-chaired the Student Experience subcommittee of the UC’s Presidential Working Group on Artificial Intelligence. She continues to serve on the UC AI Council.

Prior to coming to CITRIS in 2012, she was executive director of the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law, where she helped to develop its program in human rights, technology and digital media. She has written and spoken widely on these topics, as well as AI governance and applications in higher education and technology applications for civic engagement, digital equity, and government transparency and accountability. She held positions as assistant dean for development with International and Area Studies at UC Berkeley and in development and public relations at University of California Press and San Francisco Opera. She earned an M.A. and PhD from Duke University.