ATOM Dialogues: Dr. Garo Armen and Nouneh Sarkissian

Sure. Like many Armenians, we have been displaced. I was born in Istanbul - in Armenian we call it Bulis - and came to the US at the age of 17. Because of my roots and my grandmother's teachings, I always felt we needed to do something for our people. One of the reasons I left BIS was because I was getting active in our Armenian school and starting to talk about why it was so important for Armenians to have their own country, back in the 1960s. When this came to the attention of our vice principal who was Turkish, my father made a decision that I should leave Turkey otherwise I would get into trouble with the authorities. So I did and unfortunately I never went back. I lived in the US and in 2001 for the first time I had the means to go to Hayastan - the luxury of time and clarity of head to see what our people there live like. I was quite shocked in 2001 because we were coming out of the difficulties of post-Soviet Armenia. The plight of our people, particularly in the villages, was heartbreaking - children in conditions with lack of facilities and resources to develop and learn. It became almost obligatory to do something about it. The next time I went back to Hayastan with my wife was two years later. My decision to go back was based on a high sense of responsibility because during those two years between 2001 and 2003 I was very busy running two companies and could rationalize that I was too busy. Then in 2003 I realized my people don't have the luxury of time for my busy schedule to be cleared. That drove me to my second visit. There was a catalyst during my second visit when I was visiting the village of Karakert at the suggestion of a wonderful priest, Father Dad from Boston. He said 'You must go and see Karakert.' So I did. An elderly man in the village, Baron Davian, took me around to see the conditions of the children. I said to him in August 2003, 'I will come back and see what I can do to help you.' He laughed at me and said, 'Everybody says that and nobody ever comes back.' And that was the birth of KAF [Children of Armenia Fund].

KOAF is the Children of Armenia Fund. We decided to name it as such because children of Armenia represent the future of Armenia. We named the organization Children of Armenia Fund to convey that message. How do you practice it? When we started with COAF activities, we were a tiny existence in Armenia - I had one person sort of coordinating the efforts. Now we have grown to over 200 people. It's a holistically positioned concept and implementation covering all walks of life. We concentrate on the villages of Armenia because that's where the most need is. Villages have been neglected with no resources. But we've discovered that with a little bit of resources provided, the potential and output from our young generation is unbelievable. If you give them a sense of what is possible and provide educational, health, social, and economic resources, the investment and return we have seen over the last 21 years has been fantastic. These children are achieving heights you couldn't imagine. For example, I have one child from the village of Lernag who I gave a little talk to her class when she was 13. My talk was about the immune system - immunology and cancer are my everyday job. I gave a talk in Armenian teaching the importance of the immune system. The next time I met this child was at the medical university in Yerevan. She came to me after I gave a talk and said, 'Do you remember me?' She was 13 then, now in her 20s. I said I didn't remember her. She said, 'I was one of those children you were talking about immunology and now I'm graduating from medical school in Yerevan.' This young lady went from training in Yerevan to an internship in France, then I brought her to train with my company. She is now back at the Yellow Center practicing medicine. She married a wonderful young man who is a transplant surgeon at the Yerevan center. I have seen her development. She still works for my company, Agenus, from Yerevan because we have clinical activities there. She is one of the superstars in my company.

This is a very prolific question. The way to address it is: I have an addiction. The addiction is when I see a need that I have the capacity to address, I feel compelled to do it. For example, my mother died at age 47 of breast cancer. She died in my arms. I had brought her to the US in 1972 for experimental treatment. It was heartbreaking to see how humiliating a disease cancer is. Years later, when I came across a technology that I thought could fundamentally treat and cure cancer - a personalized cancer vaccine - I felt the need to do something about it. I formed my company, Agenus. Thirty years later, we have a very powerful booster of the immune system - combinations of antibodies that boost the immune system. The results are incredible. At the ATOM conference, I showed a visual of what these antibodies do: clear cancer from a massive tumor to entirely gone in seven weeks. So when I saw the need in Armenian villages, I felt the need to do something. When I started the company, I had no idea how vast the effort would become. Same with COAF - we started with one village, then were approached by the next, and now we work in 150 villages, focusing on children. When you see the outcomes, you feel compelled to do more. I call it an addiction. My farm, Ararat Farms, is about healthy living and wellness. In modern society, we are surrounded by processed foods. I started the farm more than 10 years ago to grow healthy foods for healthy existence. These experiments - through Agenus addressing wellness for cancer patients, through COAF addressing wellness for children, and through Ararat Farms providing healthy foods - are all connected.

Our cancer treatments address the immune system. The immune system is the body's natural defenses and offenses. It keeps us alive and protected from external harm. But cancer grows from within and fools the immune system. To battle this evil from within, we need very specific methods that overcome the cancer's ability to appear as normal. Cancer cells are mutations of normal cells, so the immune system doesn't activate against them. Addressing that and activating the immune system is a challenge. My company has been doing this for 30 years, while cancer immunology became fashionable only in the last 10 years. Our 30 years of knowledge allow us to specifically address the handicaps of the immune system. We activate the immune system to recognize the specific cancer of that person and battle it. This is best done in earlier stages; in end-stage disease we help about 20-30% of patients, but with stage three disease we help 80-90%. The hope is to eradicate cancer via immune activation. The results are very encouraging. We've treated over a thousand patients. In the neoadjuvant setting - stage three disease - we are achieving complete remission of tumors in six to eight weeks, which is nothing short of a miracle. Unlike chemotherapy or radiotherapy that weaken cancer and sometimes allow the immune system to take over, we take the extra step of helping the immune system overcome cancer more frequently.

Drug development has become a bureaucratic process. Regulatory agencies have procedures to protect patients, but overregulation ends up hurting patients by delaying advanced technologies and availability. Thanks to a network of hospitals worldwide and communication among key opinion leaders, we've done clinical trials in over 80 hospitals throughout Europe, the US, and even Russia. Political tensions are not justification for punishing patients in places like Russia; patients everywhere are needy. We work throughout these regions. The key opinion leaders see the results for their patients and want more. That's how we've treated over a thousand patients in these regions. We are beginning to make our drugs available in several countries even before formal approval through named patient programs. The objective is to get approval as soon as possible, overcoming bureaucratic hurdles because patients cannot afford to wait.

I think I have been more optimistic today than ever before. Seeing results in the clinic - patients undergoing complete remissions or living much longer than expected - is not just hope, it's reality today. That reality will translate to widespread application of our molecules, antibodies, and technologies. The advancement of knowledge continues to develop. Collectively, between medical scientists, laboratory scientists, and clinicians around the world who want to do something fundamentally different about curing cancer, we have made progress. But that progress has been incremental. Cancer remains a major problem; we are seeing an epidemic of colon cancer in the young, even children as young as eight with metastatic colon cancer. That requires immediate attention. I am convinced the immune system is the only way to address this in a major leap. Prior treatments like chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and radiation have done a little. For example, approved drugs that provide only four to six weeks of extension to life at a huge cost, with horrible quality of life - it's almost inhumane. With immunotherapy and immune cures, we are changing that fundamentally with major leaps.

Prevention methodologies for cancer and other diseases are the best. They are not a 100% guarantee for an individual, but they make it much less probable to develop cancer. Genetic factors play a role, but having a life concentrating on wellness and a healthy lifestyle is critical. The ATOM conference this week addressed that practically every session. Healthy nutrition, a lifestyle to keep our bodies in healthy condition with exercise, mental health through meditation and stress reduction - stress is a major evil. Combining healthy nutrition, mental health, and physical conditioning reduces your probability of developing cancer and enhances your ability to combat exogenous diseases. During COVID, it became obvious that unhealthy individuals had worse outcomes. The probabilities of remaining healthy even with adverse conditions are much better with better mental health, better nutrition, and better conditioning of the body.

Nune, you mentioned that Singapore was the first ATOM conference in 2023. Unfortunately I did not attend that one, but I am delighted I attended this one. Unlike many conferences that are very specific subject-oriented, the ATOM conferences take a broad, holistic approach to many subjects, from how to have a healthy microbiome to neurological health, mental health, and immune health. Having these diverse subjects visited by top people in their respective fields encourages us. Specialization is important, but a holistic approach to understanding the body is critical. Science has mastered specifics at a micro level, but we have yet to master biological systems that are multifaceted. ATOM's holistic approach with scientific rigor is something I would like to see repeated. I understand the next conference will be in Los Angeles in May. I welcome advancements in human interactions towards a holistic approach to wellness.

Thank you very much for this opportunity.