Episode 1

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Published on:

13th Aug 2025

AI in Oncology: Hype, Evidence, and the Threshold of Clinical Trust

What does it take for AI to move from technical innovation to real-world adoption in oncology?

In the first episode of Precision Signals, Dr. Sean Khozin speaks with Dr. Cora Sternberg and Dr. Olivier Elemento—two leaders at the intersection of clinical trials, precision medicine, and computational biology.

Together, they unpack the central paradox of medical AI: why so many tools are technically validated, yet so few are clinically trusted. Topics include:

  • Why randomized clinical trials—not just retrospective benchmarks—are essential for AI adoption
  • The limitations of current training data and the risks of treating clinical guidelines as ground truth
  • The evolving role of real-world data, EHRs, and multimodal inputs in building more adaptive AI systems
  • What physicians actually need to trust and use AI in everyday cancer care

This is a candid conversation about evidence, trust, and what it will take to build AI that earns a place in the oncology clinic, grounded in insights from the participants’ recent review published in NEJM AI: https://ai.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/A...

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About the Podcast

Precision Signals
Decoding the Systems Behind Breakthroughs in Healthcare and Biomedicine
Precision Signals is a podcast from the CEO Roundtable on Cancer about decoding biomedical progress: what’s real, what matters, and what’s next. We talk with scientists, regulators, investors, and builders operating across the messy interface of research, healthcare, and policy. Some are moving the system from within; others are reshaping it from the outside. All of them bring signal in a world crowded with noise.

About your host

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Sean Khozin, MD, MPH

Sean Khozin, MD, MPH is a physician-executive and board-certified oncologist internationally recognized for his pioneering work on advancing the use of artificial intelligence and novel data science solutions in cancer research and drug development. As Chief Executive Officer of the CEO Roundtable on Cancer and its independent AI research organization, Project Data Sphere, he leads initiatives that bridge cutting-edge technology with clinically-meaningful applications to accelerate cancer research and care.

Dr. Khozin is founder of Phyusion Bio LLC, an advisory and venture creation firm specializing in precision therapies and AI-powered solutions. His entrepreneurial track record includes co-founding Hello Health (acquired by Myca Health) and serving as CEO of CancerLinQ, where he orchestrated its strategic acquisition by ConcertAI.

His regulatory and industry expertise spans leadership roles at Johnson & Johnson/Janssen R&D as Global Head of Data Strategy and at the US FDA, where he served as founding Executive Director of INFORMED—the agency's first data science incubator—while helping establish the Oncology Center of Excellence. Earlier in his career at the National Cancer Institute, he spearheaded clinical research on molecular profiling strategies for targeted therapy development.

Dr. Khozin maintains his academic connections as a Research Affiliate at MIT and serves on multiple boards advancing the intersection of cancer research and artificial intelligence in biomedicine.