(upbeat music)
- Hello, everyone, and welcome back.
And if you're just joining us,
welcome to the CIRM 2020 Grantee Meeting.
These two days full exciting and really engaging
presentations and discussions
about the latest in stem cell research all funded by us,
the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
I'm Kevin McCormack, I'm the communications director there.
And next session is gonna be about cardiac stem cells.
And we're delighted to be able to to welcome Pat Farrant
who has a really interesting story.
And he's gonna be talking to us about heart disease
and his involvement in stem cell research.
Pat, your introduction to the world of stem cell research
into the world of heart disease
came rather suddenly didn't it?
- Yes, it did, not exactly a planned event,
I had been ignoring some warning signs
and probably was not paying attention to,
what I've learned is a vital component
which is genetic base to heart disease,
my father passed away at age 61.
And that's what I experienced.
So I learned how to get fast action in an emergency room,
you just go in and say I'm experiencing chest pains.
I'm 61 years old, that's the same age my father died.
So right away, I got into the hospital
and shortly thereafter, I guess I crashed
and blood pressure dropped
and they so had to do surgery at midnight
till five in the morning.
I told at one point, I was down to my last two hours
as a main artery, the LAD
left anterior descending artery had closed
and but came through five hours later,
and that was 15 years ago.
- Wow, were delighted you are here to join us,
I know since then that you've been really active
and engaged in kind of advocacy
and support groups for heart disease.
Talk a bit about that.
- Yes, indeed, working closely with my cardiologist,
she felt I was making a spectacular recovery.
And she said, I really should talk with other heart patients
in heart disease in general,
but other heart patients about what to expect in recovery,
and what they have to do to get their lives back.
So I call the American Heart Association,
locally here in San Jose,
and they asked me if I like to look on envelopes,
or if I like to get involved in fundraising,
and neither one of those particularly appealed to me.
So they said they had an affiliate
organization called Mended Hearts,
heart patient organization.
We currently have about 40,000 members,
so I became involved.
We visit heart patients,
quarter million heart patients throughout America each year,
I became involved at the local level
as a chapter vice president, president
and then regionally as a regional director of area,
and then the entire area,
and I served on the board of directors
as a vice president and was elected
to be executive Vice President of
about a 40,000 member organization.
We primarily visit patients in their rooms,
we just introduce ourselves as saying,
we have something in common with you.
We've had a personal experience
with cardiovascular disease.
- And I know that one of those experiences,
while you were in the room,
you saw exactly how difficult it is for patients
to make decisions.
I mean, there's a real time pressure,
obviously, because of the heart condition,
but also conflicting information,
so tell us that story.
- Well, it was in an innocent way,
that I happen to be in this patient's room
when the surgeon, the cardiovascular surgeon showed up,
cardiothoracic surgeon excuse me,
and he was the patient,
they hadn't decided on what the course of action
was going to be or the treatment.
So he gave quite a presentation on the benefits
and values of open heart surgery.
And I happen to be back in that same patient's room
where later in the day,
an interventional cardiologist came in,
and went through all of the benefits of an intervention
by putting a stent.
And really, I felt wasn't giving
in terms of informed consent
of giving the patient the data, the information they needed
to make a decision.
It really, really sounded almost to me
like they were pitching both of the things
that they did one over the other
and the patient actually asked me what I would do,
well obviously I can't give medical advice.
And I told him he needs to talk with a cardiologist
because he was, it had to be decided
that the treatment was going to proceed the next day,
and I didn't have a chance to talk with a cardiologist
and was put in a very awkward situation I felt
and also was somewhat in a bit of a drug haze
with the medical treatment he was giving.
So it it made for,
I felt just a kind of an awkward situation
of two different procedures being promoted to them
and then saying, so now what do you wanna do?
- Yeah, obviously, it's a really critical time,
obviously for the patient,
and obviously informed consent and good information
is a really challenging thing,
for someone to be able to grasp in that situation.
Since then you've become involved with a CAP,
what we call a clinical advisory panel
helping guide from the patient's perspective,
some of the heart disease research, we're funding,
talk a bit about your experience with that.
I mean, how important do you think
the patient's perspective is?
- I have been on the board there,
and it's a bit of a difficult situation.
And these are all cardiac researchers,
highly trained, highly educated,
in fact I started out by thanking them
for studying hard and getting a good grade
in organic chemistry,
which probably helped them get into medical school.
And I thank them for their field as,
for their choice for their field of study,
medicine and furthermore, cardiology.
So I said, speaking on behalf of some 40,000 patients,
we thank you for how you've committed your life,
doing research on heart disease and heart failure.
I have a difficult time following
a lot of what they're saying, because it's all better,
and they understand that I'm just an average person
without medical training,
but I tried to look up as many words as I can,
as they're talking and follow what they're saying.
Heart failure and what they're looking at
in terms of regenerating stem cells,
regenerating cells for stage two, stage three heart failure,
damaged hearts, isn't more of a heart disease person,
a heart failure person,
but I'm following what it is that they're,
how to design the research and all its involved
and also learn to appreciate the various steps
that have to be taken to get FDA approval for human trials.
This particular study out of Stanford
isn't at human trials yet.
But will certainly look,
I wouldn't be a candidate for that.
Because heart failure is not my thing,
but I just guess one thing that came up
is that when they were prior to getting to human trials,
I said, well, I just asked them out of curiosity.
I said, what if there is some complications here,
in terms of the the patient having complications
following this stem cells,
and involved hospitalizations, etcetera ?
So I just asked them who would pay?
And I can kind tell by the nervous looks
going around that room,
that hadn't exactly been established yet.
I mean, it's funded by a grant from the state of California
and the PI, the principal investigators at Stanford.
And this, I think their answer to,
well, our various attorneys will look at this
and that will be decided.
- And that's great, that's why we love having patient
advocates on these panels,
because you asked the questions that maybe
they hadn't thought about, but they need to
as they get ready for a clinical trial.
Well, that's all we have time for Pat,
thank you so much for joining us,
for sharing your experiences with us
and for being on a clinical advisory panel,
I know that the contribution you make
you downplay it a little bit, but it's really essential,
to make these projects as successful as they possibly can.