Faculty

Emily Whitehead was just five years old when she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2010. Over the next two years, she relapsed twice, and her medical team recommended hospice, as there were no other options.Believing a cure was still possible, her parents enrolled her in a Phase 1 clinical trial for CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T cell therapy at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and in April 2012, Emily became the first child to receive this treatment, which reprograms a patient’s own immune cells to fight cancer.

Humans have been trying to predict the future since the beginning of time. From the ancient Greeks consulting the Oracle of Delphi to kings from the Shang Dynasty turning to oracle bones, people have tried to predict everything from the weather to success on the battlefield.In these initial forecasts people used their judgement and previous experiences to observe trends and patterns, which made their reliability difficult to assess and reproduce.