David Agus

David B. Agus (/ˈeɪgəs/) is an American physician and author^[1] who serves as a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering^[2] and the Founding Director and CEO of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine.^[3] He is also the cofounder of several personalized medicine companies^[4][5][6][7] and a contributor to CBS News on health topics.^[8]

David Agus
Agus at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in 2013
Alma mater	Princeton University (1987) University of Pennsylvania
Known for	Professor of Medicine and Engineering Co-founder of Navigenics Co-founder of Applied Proteomics The End of Illness (2012) A Short Guide to a Long Life (2014)
Children	2
Scientific career
Fields	Personal genomics Biotechnology Cancer

Agus's field of expertise is advanced cancer.^[7] He has developed new cancer treatments with the aid of private foundations, as well as national agencies including the National Cancer Institute.^[6] Agus has also served as chair of the Global Agenda Council on Genetics for the World Economic Forum.^[9]  

Early life and education

Agus grew up in Baltimore.^[10] He graduated cum laude in molecular biology from Princeton University in 1987 and received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in 1991.^[11] He completed his residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital and completed his oncology fellowship training at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.^[7][12] He spent two years at the National Institutes of Health as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute-NIH Research Scholar.^[13][14]

Career

Agus has had a long and varied career. At the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, he leads a team researching prevention and treatments for cancer.^[15] He also maintains an oncology practice to apply his team's research discoveries to the patients under his care.^[16] At the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, he was an attending physician in the Department of Medical Oncology and head of the Laboratory of Tumor Biology. He was also Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cornell University Medical Center.^[17]

As director of the Spielberg Family Center for Applied Proteomics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, he led a multidisciplinary team of researchers dedicated to the development and use of proteomic technologies to guide doctors in making health-care decisions tailored to individual needs. The center grew out of earlier clinical projects at Cedars-Sinai, where Agus served as an attending physician in oncology, which observed striking differences between the aggressiveness of prostate cancer in certain patients and their ability to respond to treatment.^[18][19]

Agus's research has focused on the use of technology to model cancer and on new treatments for cancer.^[20][21]

He has founded and co-founded several companies including Oncology.com,^[22] Navigenics (a personalized medicine company),^[21] Applied Proteomics (together with Danny Hillis),^[21] Sensei (wellness and lifestyle company, together with Larry Ellison),^[23] and Sensei Agriculture.^[23]

In 2021, Agus and the Ellison Institute launched Global Health Security Consortium, a joint global effort with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and Sir John Bell and a team of scientists at the University of Oxford, focused on finding ways to track and treat COVID-19 and prevent future pandemics.^[24][25]

Plagiarism controversy

On March 6, 2023, the Los Angeles Times reported that "at least 95 separate passages" in Agus' book The Book of Animal Secrets: Nature's Lessons for a Long and Happy Life were plagiarized, with the word choice in some instances found to be identical to that in existing sources. The book was initially set to be released the following day by Simon and Schuster, but after the article's publication, it was postponed until the sections in question could be rewritten. Agus issued a public apology.^[26]

On March 17, 2023, the Times further reported that Agus's first three books; The End of Illness, A Short Guide to a Long Life, and The Lucky Years: How to Thrive in the Brave New World of Health, contained over 120 instances where passages were identical to other texts from sources including books, articles in scientific journals, science blogs, online articles and Wikipedia articles. Almost all of the copied paragraphs or passages did not attribute the original authors. Augus stated he was not aware of, nor had any involvement in the passages that were supposedly plagairised and stated the specific passages were written by his co-writer Kristen Loberg.^[27]

Television show

Agus hosted a Paramount+ television show titled The Check Up with Dr. David Agus, which was broadcast starting in December 2022. In the show, Agus discussed different medical issues with celebrity guests who have experience with those health concerns.^[28]