Jonathan Sessler was a college student when he was first diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Fortunately, he was also a chemistry major. After surviving radiation therapy, relapsing and then surviving extremely high doses of what he calls “rat poison” (a.k.a. chemotherapy), his oncologist challenged him: “You’re a chemist. Find new cancer drugs.”

In the four decades since, he’s founded two companies, one of which commercialized a blockbuster drug for leukemia and was sold for $21 billion. The other is working to develop a drug he invented to treat ovarian cancer, based on large molecules that deliver poisons to cancer cells and named after the Lone Star state: Texaphyrin. He knows the odds of bringing effective new cancer treatments to market are stacked against him, yet he tirelessly pushes ahead.

Last month, he spoke to producer Marc Airhart in front of a live audience at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

About Point of Discovery

Point of Discovery is a production of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences. You can listen to all our episodes at @point-of-discovery .

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Questions or comments about this episode, or our series in general? Email Marc Airhart at mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu