Podcast appearances and mentions of felix feng

JCO PO author Dr. Timothy Showalter at Artera and University of Virginia shares insights into his JCO PO article, “Digital Pathology–Based Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Scores and Outcomes in a Randomized Phase III Trial in Men With Nonmetastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer” . Host Dr. Rafeh Naqash and Dr. Showalter discuss how multimodal AI as a prognostic marker in nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer may serve as a predictive biomarker with high-risk patients deriving the greatest benefit from treatment with apalutamide. TRANSCRIPT  Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Hello and welcome to JCO Precision Oncology Conversations where we'll bring you engaging conversations with authors of clinically relevant and highly significant JCO PO articles. I'm your host, Dr. Rafeh Naqash, podcast Editor for JCO Precision Oncology and assistant professor at the OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center at the University of Oklahoma. Today, we are excited to be joined by Dr. Timothy Showalter, Chief Medical Officer at Artera and professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Virginia and author of the JCO Precision Oncology article entitled, “Digital Pathology Based Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Scores and Outcomes in a Randomized Phase 3 Trial in Men with Non-Metastatic Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer.” At the time of this recording, our guest's disclosures will be linked in the transcript. Dr. Showalter, it's a pleasure to have you here today. Dr. Timothy Showalter: It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: I think this is going to be a very interesting discussion, not just from a biomarker perspective, but also in terms of how technologies have evolved and how we are trying to stratify patients, trying to escalate or deescalate treatments based on biomarkers. And this article is a good example of that. One of the things I do want to highlight as part of this article is that Dr. Felix Feng is the first author for this article. Unfortunately, Dr. Felix Feng passed away in December of 2024. He was a luminary in this field of prostate cancer research. He was also the Chair of the NRG GU Committee as well as Board of Directors for RTOG Foundation and has mentored a lot of individuals from what I have heard. I didn't know Dr. Feng but heard a lot about him from my GU colleagues. It's a huge loss for the community, but it was an interesting surprise for me when I saw his name on this article as I was reviewing it. Could you briefly talk about Dr. Feng for a minute and how you knew him and how he's been an asset to the field? Dr. Timothy Showalter: Yeah. I'm always happy to talk about Felix whenever there's an opportunity. You know, I was fortunate to know Felix Feng for about 20 years as we met during our residency programs through a career development workshop that we both attended and stayed close ever since. And you know, he's someone who made an impact on hundreds of lives of cancer researchers and other radiation oncologists and physicians in addition to the cancer patients he helped, either through direct clinical care or through his innovation. For this project in particular, I first became involved soon after Felix had co-founded Artera, which is, you know the company that developed this. And because Felix was such a prolific researcher, he was actually involved in this and this research project from all different angles, both from the multimodal digital pathology tool to the trial itself and being part of moving the field forward in that way. It's really great to be able to sort of celebrate a great example of Felix's legacy, which is team science, and really moving the field forward in terms of translational projects based on clinical trials. So, it's a great opportunity to highlight some of his work and I'm really happy to talk about it with you. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Thanks, Tim. Definitely a huge loss for the scientific community. And I did see a while back that there was an international symposium organized, showcasing his work for him to talk about his journey last year where more than 200, 250 people from around the globe actually attended that. That speaks volumes to the kind of impact he's had as an individual and impact he's had on the scientific side of things as well. Dr. Timothy Showalter: Yes. And we just had the second annual Feng Symposium the day before ASCO GU this year with, again, a great turnout and some great science highlighted, as well as a real focus on mentorship and team science and collaboration. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Thank you so much for telling us all about that. Now going to what you guys published in JCO Precision Oncology, which is this article on using a biomarker approach to stratify non-metastatic prostate cancer using this artificial intelligence based H&E score. Could you tell us the background for what started off this project? And I see there is a clinical trial data set that you guys have used, but there's probably some background to how this score or how this technology came into being. So, could you superficially give us an idea of how that started? Dr. Timothy Showalter: Sure. So, the multimodal AI score was first published in a peer reviewed journal back in 2022 and the test was originally developed through a collaboration with the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group or Energy Oncology Prostate Cancer Research Team. The original publication describes development and validation of a risk stratification tool designed to predict distant metastasis and prostate cancer specific mortality for men with localized prostate cancer. And the first validation was in men who were treated with definitive radiation therapy. There have been subsequent publications in that context and there's a set of algorithms that have been validated in localized prostate cancer and there's a test that's listed on NCCN guidelines based on that technology. The genesis for this paper was really looking at extending that risk stratification tool that was developed in localized prostate cancer to see if it could one, validate in a non-metastatic castrate refractory prostate cancer population for patients enrolled on the SPARTAN trial. And two, whether there was a potential role for the test output in terms of predicting benefit from apalutamide for patients with non-metastatic prostate cancer. For patients who are enrolled on the SPARTAN study, almost 40% of them had H&E stain biopsy slide material available and were eligible to be included in this study. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Going a step back to how prostate cancer, perhaps on the diagnostic side using the pathology images is different as you guys have Gleason scoring, which to the best of my knowledge is not necessarily something that most other tumor types use. Maybe Ki-67 is somewhat of a comparison in some of the neuroendocrine cancers where high Ki-67 correlates with aggressive biology for prognosis. And similarly high Gleason scores, as we know for some of the trainees, correlates with poor prognosis. So, was the idea behind this based on trying to stratify or sub-stratify Gleason scoring further, where you may not necessarily know what to do with the intermediate high Gleason score individual tumor tissues? Dr. Timothy Showalter: Well, yeah. I mean, Gleason score is a really powerful risk stratification tool. As you know, our clinical risk groupings are really anchored to Gleason scores as an important driver for that. And while that's a powerful tool, I think, you know, some of the original recognition for applying computer vision AI into this context is that there are likely many other features located in the morphology that can be used to build a prognostic model. Going back to the genesis of the discovery project for the multimodal AI model, I think Felix Feng would have described it as doing with digital pathology and computer vision AI what can otherwise be done with gene expression testing. You know, he would have approached it from a genomic perspective. That's what the idea was. So, it's along the line of what you're saying, which is to think about assigning a stronger Gleason score. But I think really more broadly, the motivation was to come up with an advanced complementary risk stratification tool that can be used in conjunction with clinical risk factors to help make better therapy recommendations potentially. So that was the motivation behind it. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Sure. And one of the, I think, other important teaching points we try to think about, trainees of course, who are listening to this podcast, is trying to differentiate between prognostic and predictive scores. So, highlighting the results that you guys show in relation to the MMAI score, the digital pathology score, and outcomes as far as survival as well as outcomes in general, could you try to help the listeners understand the difference between the prognostic aspect of this test and the predictive aspect of this test? Dr. Timothy Showalter: So let me recap for the listeners what we found in the study and how it kind of fits into the prognostic and the predictive insights. So, one, you know, as I mentioned before, this is ultimately a model that was developed and validated for localized prostate cancer for risk stratification. So, first, the team looked at whether that same tool developed in localized prostate cancer serves as a prognostic tool in non-metastatic castrate-refractory prostate cancer. So, we applied the tool as it was previously developed and identified that about 2/3 of patients on the SPARTAN trial that had specimens available for analysis qualified as high risk and 1/3 of patients as either intermediate or low risk, which we called in the paper ‘non-high risk'. And we're able to show that the multimodal AI score, which ranges from 0 to 1, and risk group, was associated with metastasis free survival time to second progression or PFS 2 and overall survival. And so that shows that it performs as a prognostic tool in this setting. And this paper was the first validation of this tool in non-metastatic castrate-refractory prostate cancer. So, what that means to trainees is basically it helps you understand how aggressive that cancer is or better stratify the risk of progression over time. So that's the prognostic performance. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Thank you for trying to explain that. It's always useful to get an example and understand the difference between prognostic and predictive. Now again, going back to the technology, which obviously is way more complicated than the four letter word MMAI, I per se haven't necessarily done research in this space, but I've collaborated with some individuals who've done digital pathology assessments, and one of the projects we worked on was TIL estimation and immune checkpoint related adverse events using some correlation and something that one of my collaborators had sent to me when we were working on this project as part of this H&E slide digitalization, you need color deconvolution, you need segmentation cell profiling. Superficially, is that something that was done as part of development of this MMAI score as well? Dr. Timothy Showalter You need a ground truth, right? So, you need to train your model to predict whatever the outcome is. You know, if you're designing an AI algorithm for Ki-67 or something I think you mentioned before, you would need to have a set of Ki-67 scores and train your models to create those scores. In this case, the clinical annotation for how we develop the multimodal AI algorithm is the clinical endpoints. So going back to how this tool was developed, the computer vision AI model is interpreting a set of features on the scan and what it's trying to do is identify high risk features and make a map that would ultimately predict clinical outcomes. So, it's a little bit different than the many digital pathology algorithms where the AI is being trained to predict a particular morphological finding. In this case, the ground truth that the model is trained to predict is the clinical outcome. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Sure. And from what you explained earlier, obviously, tumors that had a high MMAI score were the ones that were benefiting the most from the ADT plus the applausive. Is this specific for this androgen receptor inhibitor or is it interchangeable with other inhibitors that are currently approved? Dr. Timothy Showalter: That's a great question and we don't know yet. So, as you're alluding to, we did find that the MMAI risk score was predictive for benefit from apalutamide and so it met the statistical definition of having a significant interaction p value so we can call it a predictive performance. And so far, we've only looked in this population for apalutamide. I think you're raising a really interesting point, which is the next question is, is this generalizable to other androgen receptor inhibitors? There will be future research looking at that, but I think it's too early to say. Just for summary, I think I mentioned before, there are about 40% of patients enrolled on the SPARTAN study had specimens available for inclusion in this analysis. So, the SPARTAN study did show in the entire clinical trial set that patients with non-metastatic castrate-refractory prostate cancer benefited from apalutamide. The current study did show that there seems to be a larger magnitude of benefit for those patients who are multimodal AI high risk scores. And I think that's very interesting research and suggests that there's some interaction there. But I certainly would want to emphasize that we have not shown that patients with intermediate or low risk don't benefit from apalutamide. I think we can say that the original study showed that that trial showed a benefit and that we've got this interesting story with multimodal AI as well. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Sure. And I think from a similar comparison, ctDNA where ctDNA shows prognostic aspects, I treat people with lung cancer especially, and if you're ctDNA positive at a 3 to 4-month period, likely chances of you having a shorter disease-free interval is higher. Same thing I think for colorectal cancers. And now there are studies that are using ctDNA as an integral biomarker to stratify patients positive/negative and then decide on escalation/de-escalation of treatment. So, using a similar approach, is there something that is being done in the context of the H&E based stratification to de-intensify or intensify treatments based on this approach? Dr. Timothy Showalter: You're hitting right on the point in the most promising direction. You know, as we pointed out in the manuscript, one of the most exciting areas as a next step for this is to use a tool like this for stratification for prospective trials. The multimodal AI test is not being used currently in clinical trials of non-metastatic castrate-refractory prostate cancer, which is a disease setting for this paper. There are other trials that are in development or currently accruing where multimodal AI stratification approach is being taken, where you see among the high-risk scores, at least in the postoperative setting for a clinical trial that's open right now, high risk score patients are being randomized to basically a treatment intensification question. And then the multimodal AI low risk patients are being randomized to a de-intensification experimental arm where less androgen deprivation therapy is being given. So, I think it's a really promising area to see, and I think what has been shown is that this tool has been validated really across the disease continuum. And so, I think there are opportunities to do that in multiple clinical scenarios. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Then moving on to the technological advancements, very fascinating how we've kind of evolved over the last 10 years perhaps, from DNA based biomarkers to RNA expression and now H&E. And when you look at cost savings, if you were to think of H&E as a simpler, easier methodology, perhaps, with the limitations that centers need to digitalize their slides, probably will have more cost savings. But in your experience, as you've tried to navigate this H&E aspect of trying to either develop the model or validate the model, what are some of the logistics that you've experienced can be a challenge? As we evolve in this biomarker space, how can centers try to tackle those challenges early on in terms of digitalizing data, whether it's simple data or slides for that matter? Dr. Timothy Showalter: I think there's two main areas to cover. One, I think that the push towards digitalization is going to be, I think, really driven by increasing availability and access to augmentative technologies like this multimodal AI technology where it's really adding some sort of a clinical insight beyond what is going to be generated through routine human diagnostic pathology. I think that when you can get these sorts of algorithms for patient care and have them so readily accessible with a fast turnaround time, I think that's really going to drive the field forward. Right now, in the United States, the latest data I've seen is that less than 10% of pathology labs have gone digital. So, we're still at an early stage in that. I hope that this test and similar ones are part of that push to go more digital. The other, I think, more interesting challenge that's a technical challenge but isn't about necessarily how you collect the data, but it certainly creates data volume challenges, is how do you deal with image robustness and sort of translating these tools into routine real-world settings. And as you can imagine, there's a lot of variation for staining protocols, intensity scanner variations, all these things that can affect the reliability of your test. And at least for this research group that I'm a part of that has developed this multimodal AI tool can tell you that the development is sophisticated, but very data and energy intensive in terms of how to deal with making a tool that can be consistent across a whole range of image parameters. And so that presents its own challenges for dealing with a large amount of compute time and AI cycles to make robust algorithms like that. And practically speaking, I think moving into other diseases and making this widely available, the size of data required and the amount of cloud compute time will be a real challenge. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Thank you for summarizing. I can say that definitely, you know, this is maybe a small step in prostate cancer biomarker research, but perhaps a big step in the overall landscape of biomarker research in general. So definitely very interesting. Now, moving on to the next part of the discussion is more about you as a researcher, as an individual, your career path, if you can summarize that for us. And more interestingly, this intersection between being part of industry as well as academia for perhaps some of the listeners, trainees who might be thinking about what path they want to choose. Dr. Timothy Showalter: Sure. So, as you may know, I'm a professor at the University of Virginia and I climbed the academic ladder and had a full research grant program and thought I'd be in academia forever. And my story is that along the way, I kind of by accident ended up founding a medical device company that was called Advaray and that was related to NCI SBIR funding. And I found myself as a company founder and ultimately in that process, I started to learn about the opportunity to make an impact by being an innovator within the industry space. And that was really the starting point for me. About four years ago, soon after Felix Feng co-founded Artera, he called me and told me that he needed me to join the company. For those who were lucky to know Felix well, at that very moment, it was inevitable that I was going to join Artera and be a part of this. He was just so persuasive. So, I will say, you know, from my experience of being sort of in between the academic and industry area, it's been a really great opportunity for me to enter a space where there's another way of making an impact within cancer care. I've gotten to work with top notch collaborators, work on great science, and be part of a team that's growing a company that can make technology like this available. Dr. Rafeh Naqash: Thank you so much, Tim, for sharing some of those thoughts and insights. We really appreciate you discussing this very interesting work with us and also appreciate you submitting this to JCO Precision Oncology and hopefully we'll see more of this as this space evolves and maybe perhaps bigger more better validation studies in the context of this test. Thank you for listening to JCO Precision Oncology Conversations. Don't forget to give us a rating or review and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can find all ASCO shows at asco.org/podcast.   The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.  

Chuck Ryan joins us to discuss his interview with Felix and reflects on his keynote address at ASCO GU 2025.

As part of the 2022 Prostate Cancer Patient Conference, Dr. Felix Feng discusses metastasis-directed therapy and SBRT for prostate cancer. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Show ID: 38570]

As part of the 2022 Prostate Cancer Patient Conference, Dr. Felix Feng discusses metastasis-directed therapy and SBRT for prostate cancer. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Show ID: 38570]

As part of the 2022 Prostate Cancer Patient Conference, Dr. Felix Feng discusses metastasis-directed therapy and SBRT for prostate cancer. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Show ID: 38570]

As part of the 2022 Prostate Cancer Patient Conference, Dr. Felix Feng discusses metastasis-directed therapy and SBRT for prostate cancer. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Show ID: 38570]

As part of the 2022 Prostate Cancer Patient Conference, Dr. Felix Feng discusses metastasis-directed therapy and SBRT for prostate cancer. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Show ID: 38570]

As part of the 2022 Prostate Cancer Patient Conference, Dr. Felix Feng discusses metastasis-directed therapy and SBRT for prostate cancer. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Show ID: 38570]

As part of the 2022 Prostate Cancer Patient Conference, Dr. Felix Feng discusses metastasis-directed therapy and SBRT for prostate cancer. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Show ID: 38570]

The annual Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) Retreat is in its 29th year, and is the showpiece event of the PCF's incredible research program. Each year, PCF investigators from around the world gather in California to share their work and interact together. Fair to say it has developed a legendary status among the prostate cancer community across the globe. GU Cast's Dr Renu Eapen has recently received a PCF Young Investigator Award to support her PhD into immunological aspects of prostate cancer in patients receiving Lu-PSMA on the LuTectomy trial, so she was excited to travel to Carlsbad (CA) to attend this year's PCF Retreat. She joined up with fellow Young Investigator Dr Edmond Kwan to bring us a few highlights from this year's meeting. Lots of familiar faces in there! Watch out for Felix Feng, Misha Beltran, Howard Soule, Andrea Miyahira, Todd Morgan, Chuck Ryan, Tyler Seibert, Alicia Morgans, Neeraj Agarwal, Gina Carithers and many more. Even better on our Youtube channel Links:The PCF Urotoday 

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37269]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37269]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37269]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37269]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37269]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37259]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37259]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37259]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37259]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37259]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37259]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37259]

The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This session: Felix Feng, MD, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37259]

In localized prostate cancer, the cancer has not spread outside the prostate. The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This panel features: Matthew Cooperberg, MD, MPH; Felix Feng, MD; Mack Roach III, MD; Eric Small, MD and Stan Rosenfeld. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37264]

In localized prostate cancer, the cancer has not spread outside the prostate. The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This panel features: Matthew Cooperberg, MD, MPH; Felix Feng, MD; Mack Roach III, MD; Eric Small, MD and Stan Rosenfeld. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37264]

In localized prostate cancer, the cancer has not spread outside the prostate. The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This panel features: Matthew Cooperberg, MD, MPH; Felix Feng, MD; Mack Roach III, MD; Eric Small, MD and Stan Rosenfeld. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37264]

In localized prostate cancer, the cancer has not spread outside the prostate. The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This panel features: Matthew Cooperberg, MD, MPH; Felix Feng, MD; Mack Roach III, MD; Eric Small, MD and Stan Rosenfeld. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37264]

In localized prostate cancer, the cancer has not spread outside the prostate. The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This panel features: Matthew Cooperberg, MD, MPH; Felix Feng, MD; Mack Roach III, MD; Eric Small, MD and Stan Rosenfeld. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37264]

In localized prostate cancer, the cancer has not spread outside the prostate. The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This panel features: Matthew Cooperberg, MD, MPH; Felix Feng, MD; Mack Roach III, MD; Eric Small, MD and Stan Rosenfeld. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37264]

In localized prostate cancer, the cancer has not spread outside the prostate. The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This panel features: Matthew Cooperberg, MD, MPH; Felix Feng, MD; Mack Roach III, MD; Eric Small, MD and Stan Rosenfeld. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37264]

In localized prostate cancer, the cancer has not spread outside the prostate. The California Prostate Cancer Coalition (CPCC) and The Helen Family Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center present the 2021 Patient Conference on Prostate Cancer. This panel features: Matthew Cooperberg, MD, MPH; Felix Feng, MD; Mack Roach III, MD; Eric Small, MD and Stan Rosenfeld. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 37264]

There's no one-size-fits-all solution for men weighing their options for prostate cancer treatment. That can make it hard for men and their loved ones when navigating all the various options for treatment, whether it is the initial treatment for prostate cancer, cancer recurrence after treatment, or even those with advanced disease. It's good to know that we continue moving the field forward to more personalized care for prostate cancer and assisting men with those difficult decisions.  We are excited today to introduce you to Dr. Felix Feng, a radiation oncologist. Following undergraduate training at Stanford University and medical school at Washington University in St. Louis, he completed a research fellowship and residency in radiation oncology at the University of Michigan, where he subsequently joined the faculty. He then got recruited to join the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, where he currently serves as a professor of radiation oncology, urology, and medicine, Vice-Chair for Radiation Oncology, and Director of the initiative of Prostate Cancer Research. He is a prostate cancer expert who specializes in the treatment of aggressive, high-risk, and oligometastatic prostate cancers. Dr. Feng is nationally known for his approaches in molecular biomarkers to help guide or personalize radiation therapy for patients. Be sure to listen in today, as Dr. Feng gets you up to speed with the personalization of the care for men with prostate cancer. Disclaimer: The Prostate Health Podcast is for informational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as medical advice. By listening to the podcast, no physician-patient relationship has been formed. For more information and counseling, you must contact your personal physician or urologist with questions about your unique situation.  Show highlights: Dr. Feng explains what a radiation oncologist is, and the role they play in the multidisciplinary prostate cancer team. Dr. Feng explains what personalized therapy entails and what one could expect from it. What the difference is between a prognostic biomarker and a predictive biomarker. What the rationale is behind why hormonal endogen deprivation therapy is given in conjunction with radiation treatments. Dr. Feng explains what he uses to determine how long to keep men on hormonal therapy. Dr. Feng discusses what his research group has been working on recently when it comes to deciding which patients may benefit from endogen deprivation therapy or who have their PSA come back after having had their prostates removed. The recent advances that Dr. Feng has seen in helping to personalize the treatment approaches for men who have metastatic prostate cancer. Dr. Feng discusses the exciting time we are in, in the context of advances in prostate cancer treatments, and how the field as a whole is moving towards the individualization of therapy. Links and resources: Follow Dr. Pohlman on Twitter and Instagram - @gpohlmanmd  Get your free What To Expect Guide (or find the link here, on our podcast website)   Join our Facebook group  Follow Dr. Pohlman on Twitter and Instagram  Go to the Prostate Health Academy to sign up for the wait-list for our bonus video content.  About Dr. Feng

In this interview Mike Townsend interviews Felix Feng, founder of Set Protocol. He previously worked at 21.co (acquired by Coinbase) and Radius, and graduated from UC Berkeley. We learn how Felix came up with the idea for Set Protocol and how how raised money and grew his team. Set Protocol basically allows you to buy and sell crypto management strategies for the average person, similar to how an ETF works on wall street. Check it out at Set Protocol. In the show we talk about what Set Protocol, which is a ERC20 token of crypto assets that automatically rebalances based on the strategy, who is using it, who's benefiting. We discuss why in 2017 lots of ICO’s were returning nearly 100x and it made sense to diversify, but in 2018/19 the long tail fell out of favor. There is a great article, How Set Protocol Works Under the Hood that explains more in detail about Set Protocol. We promise you'll learn a lot on this show, tune in!

Welcome to this cryptocurrency podcast with Felix Feng, co-founder and CEO of Set, the company behind Set Protocol and TokenSets, an Ethereum-based platform that lets users invest in crypto via automated “Robo” strategies or social trading strategies authored by experienced human traders. All are sortable by performance, which, in some cases, has been exceptional. The conversation is split into 4 chapters: Set Protocol and TokenSets A quick history of social trading How to get started with TokenSets Set's plans for the future It also covers: How Felix first got into Bitcoin back in 2013 The technology that powers TokenSets How traders update sets and initiate rebalancing How Set facilitates rebalancing through Dutch auctions Set as an alternative to setting up a hedge fund The explosive growth of decentralized finance or DeFi Sponsors: CryptoTrader.Tax CryptoTrader.Tax makes the excruciating task of reporting your cryptocurrency gains and losses a breeze. Sorting through transaction records from exchanges and reporting each trade in USD terms is not how most crypto investors want to spend a weekend. CryptoTrader.Tax is a software platform that automates the entire cryptocurrency tax reporting process. It's basically TurboTax for cryptocurrency investors. Just connect your exchanges and import your trade history and CryptoTrader.Tax will do all of the number-crunching and spit out your auto-filled tax reports with the click of a button. Tell them that Clay from the Flippening Podcast sent you to get a discount. Crypto Loans by Nexo Nexo is the only lender offering INSTANT crypto credit lines, which let you use digital assets as collateral to get cash in 45 fiat currencies and stablecoins. Annual interest rates for credit lines are now starting at just 5.9% - which may very well be the lowest borrowing rate in the whole industry. Nexo is also a strategic partner of exchanges, OTC desks, and crypto funds through its portfolio of structured financial products. Institutional counterparties can earn up to 8% annually on their idle stablecoins, enter into asset swap agreements, or directly borrow crypto. Individuals can also park their cash and stablecoins at Nexo's Interest-Earning account to get an annual return of 8%. So if you are looking to borrow, lend, or swap digital assets, Nexo is your GO-TO PARTNER. Definitely explore nexo.io or reach them at institutions@nexo.io. Nomics' Cryptocurrency API Spend too much time cleaning up and maintaining datasets & ingesting crypto market cap data from crypto exchanges? We offer the most accurate and transparent crypto data in the space. For examples, see our Ethereum / ETH price & OKEx pages. P.S. If you've read this far, consider signing up for our fully customizable daily crypto newsletter.

On the EthHub Weekly Recap we cover topics from the EthHub Weekly Newsletter. In this episode we discuss our recap of Berlin blockchain week, /r/ethfinace is born on Reddit, INX to raise $130mn through Ethereum IPO, tBTC is announced as competitor to WBTC, Felix Feng introduces the idea of profit pools, rDai is introduced, Istanbul EIPs are now final, Coinbase announces WalletLink, what was built at EthBerlin hackathon and discussion on the bear market. Support our show! Buy EthHub Merch Get on the email list at ethhub.substack.com

Set Protocol team members Felix Feng and Alex Soong join Into the Ether to talk about building baskets of tokenized assets on Ethereum. We spend most of the episode talking about their TokenSet product which allows users to invest in unique trading strategies all wrapped inside an ERC20 token. Have your portfolio auto-rebalance between ETH and BTC or use technical indicators to automatically move your position around. This app is a dark horse to become the #1 DeFi app when ranked by value locked. Support our show! Buy EthHub Merch Get on the email list at ethhub.substack.com

Dr. Felix Feng is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Depts. of Urology and Medicine; Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Director of Translational Research, Department of Radiation Oncology, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34962]

Dr. Felix Feng is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Depts. of Urology and Medicine; Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Director of Translational Research, Department of Radiation Oncology, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34962]

Disease Location and Risk Assessment: the scientific tools available to help with clinical decision making. Panelists: Peter Carroll, MD; Matt Cooperberg, MD; Felix Feng, MD; Tom Hope, MD. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34966]

Dr. Felix Feng is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Depts. of Urology and Medicine; Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Director of Translational Research, Department of Radiation Oncology, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34962]

Disease Location and Risk Assessment: the scientific tools available to help with clinical decision making. Panelists: Peter Carroll, MD; Matt Cooperberg, MD; Felix Feng, MD; Tom Hope, MD. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34966]

Disease Location and Risk Assessment: the scientific tools available to help with clinical decision making. Panelists: Peter Carroll, MD; Matt Cooperberg, MD; Felix Feng, MD; Tom Hope, MD. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34966]

Disease Location and Risk Assessment: the scientific tools available to help with clinical decision making. Panelists: Peter Carroll, MD; Matt Cooperberg, MD; Felix Feng, MD; Tom Hope, MD. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34966]

Disease Location and Risk Assessment: the scientific tools available to help with clinical decision making. Panelists: Peter Carroll, MD; Matt Cooperberg, MD; Felix Feng, MD; Tom Hope, MD. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34966]

Disease Location and Risk Assessment: the scientific tools available to help with clinical decision making. Panelists: Peter Carroll, MD; Matt Cooperberg, MD; Felix Feng, MD; Tom Hope, MD. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34966]

Dr. Felix Feng is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Depts. of Urology and Medicine; Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Director of Translational Research, Department of Radiation Oncology, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34962]

Disease Location and Risk Assessment: the scientific tools available to help with clinical decision making. Panelists: Peter Carroll, MD; Matt Cooperberg, MD; Felix Feng, MD; Tom Hope, MD. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34966]

Dr. Felix Feng is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Depts. of Urology and Medicine; Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Director of Translational Research, Department of Radiation Oncology, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34962]

Dr. Felix Feng is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Depts. of Urology and Medicine; Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Director of Translational Research, Department of Radiation Oncology, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34962]

Dr. Felix Feng is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Depts. of Urology and Medicine; Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Director of Translational Research, Department of Radiation Oncology, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34962]

Disease Location and Risk Assessment: the scientific tools available to help with clinical decision making. Panelists: Peter Carroll, MD; Matt Cooperberg, MD; Felix Feng, MD; Tom Hope, MD. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34966]

Dr. Felix Feng is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Depts. of Urology and Medicine; Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Director of Translational Research, Department of Radiation Oncology, UCSF. Series: "Prostate Cancer Patient Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Education] [Professional Medical Education] [Show ID: 34962]

Felix Feng is the CEO and Inje Yeo is the CPO of Set Protocol, the first functional asset-management protocol on the Ethereum blockchain. The team’s ultimate goal lies in bringing wealth-creation tools to a global user base. Today, Felix and Inje join us to discuss the flexibility of the Set architecture to add functionality over time and explain how the protocol allows users to source liquidity from any decentralized exchange. They also offer insight around their new product, TokenSets, sharing the particulars of its range-bound and buy-and-hold strategies and describing their intent to leverage community feedback to introduce additional rebalancing tactics. Listen in for Felix and Inje’s thoughts on tackling the oracle problem to enhance the protocol’s extensibility, the regulatory implications of introducing active management strategies, and differentiating Set from its competitors by way of access and innovation! Follow Felix (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/felix2feng Follow Inje (guest) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/injeyeo Follow Mike (co-host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichaelDunwort1 Follow Thomas (host) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomscaria Follow Wyre on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sendwyre Follow Set on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SetProtocol

Our CEO Ryan sits down with Felix Feng of Set Protocol

Felix Feng, founder of Set Protocol, talks decentralized finance and what it means to bundle your tokenized assets. Key takeaways: Felix is most interested in crypto’s potential to transform the financial services industry; Set is an important layer in the decentralized financial stack, along with other protocols like 0X, Dharma, Compound, and dYdX; Set is going after the $4 trillion currently invested in ETFs by allowing tokenized assets to be bundled in creative ways.

Want to diversify across any 20 cryptocurrencies of your choice and short your favorite sh*tcoins...by investing in one token? With Set, you can. As part of the new Decentralized Finance (#DeFi) series, we chat with Set Protocol, a project for decentralized asset basketing.  Founder Felix Feng joins us for a fun conversation on how basketing works, how Set differs from traditional ETFs, and the unexpected ideas people are building with Set. Rate + subscribe to stay up to date! Not financial advice. Host: @mrjasonchoi ****** Subscribe: Overcast: http://bit.ly/blockcrunch_overcast Apple Podcast: bit.ly/blockcrunch_apple Stitcher: bit.ly/blockcrunch_stitcher Spotify: http://bit.ly/blockcrunch_spotify ****** Transition music by Phortissimo: https://soundcloud.com/phortissimo Sound and outro music by Garreth Chan: https://www.garrethchan.com/

Joining Erik for this episode are Felix Feng (‪@felix2feng)‬, founder of Set Protocol and Nadav Hollander (@NadavAHollander), founder of Dharma Protocol.Felix and Nadav explain their respective companies and what they are looking to do for the open financial system. They talk about how the coming wave of decentralization in financial services will bring the same accessibility and ease of use that individuals are accustomed to with Web 2.0 services to financial services as well.They discuss the opportunities for blockchain and cryptocurrency to scale given that as big as it has gotten over the past few years, they still account for only a minuscule portion of the value of the entire financial system. A lot of attention is focused on venture capital and how that could be disrupted by blockchain, but they talk about how debt financing is many orders of magnitude larger than VC.Felix and Nadav explore what the implications of everything being tokenized might be and Erik also asks about what they are excited about in terms of products and protocols in the space as well as what they would love to see built in the future.Quotable lines from this episode:“If the cost of issuing an asset goes to zero, what happens when everything is traded? Then things get really interesting when you add derivatives and loans on top of that.”“Imagine you’re in a virtual reality world and you’ve made a virtual piece of art that’s hanging in a digital museum and you get revenue from people visiting it every so often. Now imagine you tokenize it or draw a loan against it, and pay off your mortgage in the real world.”“If you look back on this podcast in 20 years, it’s probably not going to age well because everything [that will be tokenized] is going to be even weirder because we have had no idea what these things are going to look like.”“I think that blockchain is going to create new asset classes that will be tremendously more valuable and will look like almost nothing we’ve seen in the traditional world.”“If there are going to be monoliths that emerge from this in some capacity, they’re going to have to capitalize on some irredeemably scarce resource that can’t be traded or commoditized, and I think it’s likely that resource will be trust.”“The high end estimate for the value of all derivative contracts is 1.2 quadrillion. I didn’t even know that was the number after a trillion.”-Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Joining Erik for this episode are Felix Feng (‪@felix2feng)‬, founder of Set Protocol and Nadav Hollander (@NadavAHollander), founder of Dharma Protocol.Felix and Nadav explain their respective companies and what they are looking to do for the open financial system. They talk about how the coming wave of decentralization in financial services will bring the same accessibility and ease of use that individuals are accustomed to with Web 2.0 services to financial services as well.They discuss the opportunities for blockchain and cryptocurrency to scale given that as big as it has gotten over the past few years, they still account for only a minuscule portion of the value of the entire financial system. A lot of attention is focused on venture capital and how that could be disrupted by blockchain, but they talk about how debt financing is many orders of magnitude larger than VC.Felix and Nadav explore what the implications of everything being tokenized might be and Erik also asks about what they are excited about in terms of products and protocols in the space as well as what they would love to see built in the future.Quotable lines from this episode:“If the cost of issuing an asset goes to zero, what happens when everything is traded? Then things get really interesting when you add derivatives and loans on top of that.”“Imagine you’re in a virtual reality world and you’ve made a virtual piece of art that’s hanging in a digital museum and you get revenue from people visiting it every so often. Now imagine you tokenize it or draw a loan against it, and pay off your mortgage in the real world.”“If you look back on this podcast in 20 years, it’s probably not going to age well because everything [that will be tokenized] is going to be even weirder because we have had no idea what these things are going to look like.”“I think that blockchain is going to create new asset classes that will be tremendously more valuable and will look like almost nothing we’ve seen in the traditional world.”“If there are going to be monoliths that emerge from this in some capacity, they’re going to have to capitalize on some irredeemably scarce resource that can’t be traded or commoditized, and I think it’s likely that resource will be trust.”“The high end estimate for the value of all derivative contracts is 1.2 quadrillion. I didn’t even know that was the number after a trillion.”-Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Quincy explores Felix Feng's journey from bootcamp grad to professional developer, and how he went from getting $60,000 job offers to $125,000 job offers through sheer practice and persistence. Article by Felix Feng: https://twitter.com/felix2feng Read by Quincy Larson: https://twitter.com/ossia Article link: https://fcc.im/2iX0LtS Learn to code for free at: https://www.freecodecamp.org Intro music by Vangough: https://fcc.im/2APOG02 Resources mentioned: https://www.interviewcake.com https://www.hiredintech.com/classrooms/system-design/lesson/60 https://www.educative.io/collection/5642554087309312/5679846214598656 https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1jov24/heres_how_to_prepare_for_tech_interviews/ https://github.com/h5bp/Front-end-Developer-Interview-Questions https://leetcode.com The email tool Felix uses: https://rapportive.com/   Transcript:  A less-talked about part of the bootcamper’s journey is what happens after you graduate — when you’re searching for that six-figure developer position. < 3% of applications became offers I completed Hack Reactor in July 2016 and took almost 3 months before accepting an offer with Radius Intelligence. I applied to 291 companies, did 32 phone screens, 16 technical screens, 13 coding challenges, 11 on-sites, and received 8 offers. The offers ranged from $60-125k in salary from companies all over the US, and for both front end and full stack roles. In total, 2.8% of applications became offers. Here are 5 things I wish I’d known before I began my job search. Insight #1: Get through to real people At first, I applied for companies using the shotgun approach. I applied through Indeed.com, AngelList, LinkedIn, StackOverflow, Hacker News, company websites, and even Craigslist. I’d submit a resume for any role that wanted React, Node, or JavaScript experience. In the first week, I applied to 15–20 companies a day. Pro-Tip: Find companies using this easy-application repo. My yield was low. Less than five percent of companies responded to me. I was throwing applications into a black hole. Everything changed when one of my cohort-mates, a former recruiter, shared a guide to the job search. He told us to send emails directly to real people with each application. It could be anybody. As long as someone read it. From then on, whenever I submitted an application, I searched for the company on LinkedIn and emailed someone on their engineering or hiring team. For most small companies or C-level executives, the email format is usually firstName@dreamCompany.com. For larger companies, it may be firstName.lastName@dreamCompany.com. To verify emails, I used Rapportive to cross-check emails with social media accounts. The results were amazing. With 150+ emails sent, my response rate was a whopping 22%. It also felt great to hear from real people. Surprisingly, CEOs and CTOs responded to me. Sometimes they even interviewed me themselves. Takeaway: If you’re applying through the front door, make sure you’re getting to human beings. Insight #2: Start small and work your way up You will face Level 1 interviews (a non-tech company that needs any dev), where interviewers ask you nothing more than JavaScript trivia. You will face Level 9 interviews (Google/Facebook level), where interviewers ask difficult data structure and algorithm questions. I strategically set up my process so that I had lower-level interviews earlier, and higher-level interviews later on. Early on, I gained experience, built confidence, and secured offers from companies that had less intensive interviews. As I got more experience, I effectively “leveled up.” I became capable of completing interviews at companies with higher hiring bars. This is illustrated below as a linear correlation between the number of weeks I was into the process and the base salary I was offered. There’s a direct correlation between time spent interviewing and offer salary. I unlocked tougher questions. I unlocked higher salaries. And eventually, I unlocked the job I took. Takeaway: Plan to tackle easier interviews early on and more difficult ones later on. Insight #3: Study like your future job depends on it (because it does) I hate to break it to you, but the most important thing you could be doing at any point is studying and preparing. Why? Because you won’t get the offer if you don’t have good answers to the questions they ask you. People won’t refer you if they don’t think you’re prepared for their interviews. Coming out of Hack Reactor, my weaknesses were data structures and algorithms. A study by Triplebyte has found that bootcamp grads are weaker in these areas than computer science grads. So I learned and practiced. Every day. I devoted entire days to learning sorting algorithms. Other days, I focused on understanding how the internet worked. If I didn’t fully understand a concept, I’d spend the day watching YouTube videos or searching StackOverflow until I did. I found the following study materials useful: InterviewCake: My favorite resource for data structures and algorithms. It breaks down solutions into step-by-step chunks — a great alternative to Cracking the Code Interview (CTCI). My only gripe is that they don’t have more problems! HiredInTech’s System Design Section: A great guide for system design interview questions. Coderust: If you’re avoiding CTCI like the plague, Coderust 2.0 may be perfect for you. For $49, you get solutions in almost any programming language, with interactive diagrams. Reddit’s How to Prepare for Tech Interviews: I constantly used this as a benchmark for how prepared I was. Front End Interview Questions: An exhaustive list of front-end questions. Leetcode: The go-to resource for algorithm and data structure questions. You can filter by company, so for example, you could get all the questions that Uber or Google typically ask. Takeaway: There’s no such thing as too much preparation. Insight #4: Put your best foot forward Breaking into the industry is hard. You have to perform well, even when you’re not fully prepared. In order to succeed, you have to be your own advocate. Sell Yourself At Hack Reactor, we’re trained to mask our inexperience. In our personal narratives, we purposely omit our bootcamp education. Why? Otherwise, companies automatically categorize us into junior developer roles or tag us as “not enough experience.” In one interview with a startup, the interview immediately went south once they realized I’d done a bootcamp. One company used it against me and made me a $60k offer, benchmarking against junior developers. Ultimately, you need to convince companies that you can do the job. At the same time, you need to convince yourself that you can do the job. You can. Focus on your love for programming. Focus on what you’ve built with React and Node. Focus on demonstrating your deep knowledge in JavaScript and any other languages you’ve learned. Only then can they justify giving you the job. It’s a Two-way Conversation Interviewing is a mutual exploration of fit between an employee and an employer. While it’s your job to convince employers to hire you, it’s also their job to win you over. Don’t be ashamed of using the interview as an opportunity to evaluate the job opportunity. I talked to any company, even if I had only the slightest interest. I did on-sites all over the country with any company that invited me out. I asked questions, and sucked up knowledge on engineering team organization, technologies and tools used, company challenges, and system architecture. Pro-Tip: During interviews, ask the following questions: What are some technical challenges you’ve recently faced? What do you enjoy about working at X company? How are teams structured and how are tasks usually divided? I treated every interaction as a learning opportunity. Each interaction helped me improve my presentation, interview, and technical skills. Each failure helped me find my blind spots. Takeaway: Don’t sell yourself short! And remember, it’s a mutual exploration. Insight #5: It’s a marathon, not a sprint The journey is by no means easy. For 3 months, I grinded 6 days a week. But I tried to take care of myself. What a typical day could look like in JavaScript Some days, I’d study with friends. Other days, I’d go find a cafe and study alone, or hang out at Hack Reactor’s alumni lounge. And every week I’d check in with our career counselor to talk about my progress. It’s easy to burn out during the process. Eat well, sleep, and exercise. It can get lonely. Spend time with friends who are going through the same experience. Takeaway: Prepare for the long game and make sure you take care of yourself. In summary, the key takeaways are: Get through to real people Start small and work your way up Study like your future job depends on it Put your best foot forward It’s a marathon, not a sprint The process may seem endless, but you’re going to make it. Keep putting in the hours. Keep sending in the applications. Keep taking caring of yourself. All of it pays off in the end.