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SeanParker
A disruptive
approach to
cancer research
One of the original disrupt-
ers of the new economy
is bringing his approach
to medical research. The
Parker Institute for Cancer
Immunotherapy, estab-
lished by Napster co-founder
and former Facebook
president Sean Parker, is a
network of top institutions
including Memorial Sloan
Kettering, Stanford, the
MD Anderson Cancer Center
and more. Its goal is to iden-
tify and remove obstacles
to innovation in traditional
research. For example, all
of its scientists share a
single Institutional Review
Board, which “allows us to
get major clinical trials off
the ground in weeks rather
than years,” says Parker,
and at lower costs. Perhaps
most important, Parker
wants to infuse the project
with his market sensibility:
“We follow the discoveries
coming from our research-
ers and then put our money
behind commercializing
them,” he says, either by
licensing a product or spin-
ning it out into a company.
Since its founding in 2016,
the institute has brought
11 projects to clinical trials
and supported some 2,000
research papers.likely run between 50% and 60% of the cost
of hiring a human to do the same tasks. After
all, unlike a human employee, a robot can be
on its feet—well, its wheels—all day and all
night, moving placidly from room to room,
with the same level of energy and attention
whether in its first hour or 12th hour of work.
These characteristics make Stevie seem,
to some current human caregivers, a threat.
“The majority of our staff... work multiple
jobs, are older women, sometimes older men,
who speak English as a second language and
work their butts off... They see this [as] com-
petition,” says Jessica Herpst, deputy direc-
tor of operations and technology at the Army
Distaff Foundation, the nonprofit that oper-
ates Knollwood. Neither Stevie’s creators nor
Knollwood’s management say they want to
displace human employees with an army of ro-
bots. The challenge is distributing the abun-
dant work available in a way that benefits both
the carers and the cared-for.
Menbere Gebral is an activities assistant
in the long-term-care unit, and she adores her
residents. They remind her of her late parents
back home in Ethiopia. Making her residents
happy is extremely important to her, and their
weekly bingo game is very important to them,
so when Stevie and his handlers showed up at a
recent bingo session, she was a little wary. Nor-
mally Gebral spends bingo hour toggling back
and forth between the laptop that calls out the
numbers and the players seated at the tables,
who need help with everything from placing
the plastic caps on their bingo cards to adjust-
ing their oxygen tanks. Dealing with a robot
initially seemed like one more admin task.
After one session, though, Gebral was a con-
vert. Stevie called out the bingo numbers, free-
ing Gebral from the laptop program and leav-
ing her able to interact with residents. Even
with Stevie at her side, Gebral was on her feet
and constantly busy during bingo hour. But she
was busy with the parts of her job that she likes
best and that most affect her residents’ well-
being. “I love it,” she says of the robot. “When
the robot [does] something, you [can be] up
and helping the residents.”
Next year, the roboticists will return to
Knollwood with a new version of Stevie, up-
graded based on the research they’ve done at
the facility this year. When McGinn’s team re-
turns to Dublin, Stevie will stay behind in D.C.
for the staff to operate independently. Mean-
while, the group is speaking with other insti-
tutions interested in their own custom robot.
After a pit stop back at the lab at Trinity, the
current version of Stevie and the researchers
will deploy to a care home in southern England
for several weeks for a trial similar to the one at
Knollwood. They are also in talks with a major
nursing-care company in Europe. Maybe the
residents of homes in different countries and
cultures will want entirely different things
from Stevie than Knollwood has. Models for
ongoing human-robot relationships are rel-
atively few and far between, and every new
community that invites the robot in will help
define this new kind of partnership.
In the end, “YMCA” did make the set list at
karaoke night. Long-standing M.C. Soriano led
the audience through the lyrics, while Stevie’s
arms swiveled around in the best approxima-
tion of the dance moves its custom program-
ming could allow. It was no Village People. But
the audience was happy. □