The Future of the Longevity Financial Industry
Margaretta Colangelo
Leading AI Analyst | Speaker | Writer | AI Newsletter 57,000+ subscribers
Healthy Longevity will reshape the global?financial system and disrupt the business models?of pension funds, insurance companies, banks, investment firms, and entire national economies.
The Longevity industry will dwarf all other industries in both size and market capitalization. At the same time, it will require unprecedented sophistication in its approach for assessment and forecasting from the start in order to neutralize challenges and reveal opportunities. The Longevity industry consists of multiple sectors - Science of Aging, Preventive Precision Medicine, AgeTech, and Novel Financial Systems. The finance industry is pivotal to the Longevity industry because global finance has reached a crossroads where it must decide how to approach the issue of a global aging population - as either a threat, or as The Next Big Thing and a Multi-Trillion Dollar opportunity.
AgeTech and WealthTech for seniors, two rapidly developing sectors, provide new types of products and demonstrate the significant growth in the size of the market. WealthTech is providing innovative products, such as Robo-financial advisors and digital brokers supervised and augmented by AI. AgeTech is designed to support the elderly and reduce the consequences of aging in everyday life. Over the next few years, it is likely that both will come to be regarded as complementary functions within a single product or service. One example of this combination will be Age Friendly Banks reconfigured for older people.
Novel financial systems which are relevant and adjusted to increasing healthy life expectancy including the AgeTech-Longevity bank, the Longevity investment index and hedge fund, and a specialized Longevity stock exchange will together provide multiple types of Longevity-associated derivatives. This will spawn a whole new industry, the capitalization of which could exceed anything ever conceived of by financial markets.
A fully-fledged Longevity financial industry will be heralded with the creation of a Longevity stock exchange that deals with specialized derivatives. And eventually, by the Longevity Composite Index, similar to the Nasdaq Composite. This will be the means by which investors will provide unlimited liquidity to the Longevity industry in a similar way it currently does with the real estate industry. This leads to a self-sustaining cycle of growth in the Financial Longevity industry whereby the effect of aging on GDP is repeatedly offset and the resultant wealth is repeatedly reinvested into technologically reinvigorated human capital.
There are also questions about Longevity that I will answer at the end of this article. These are the common questions about Longevity itself and the industry as a whole that financial experts may have:?
The Longevity industry will be the biggest and most complex industry in human history. The industry consists of multiple sectors - Science of Aging, Preventive Precision Medicine, AgeTech, and Novel Financial Longevity Industry. The increasing interconnection and synergy between these domains will eventually make Longevity into an asset - literally a new asset class. Financial institutions such as investment banks, pension funds, and insurance companies, have reached an inflection point whereby they can either sink or swim when faced with the oncoming Silver Tsunami - the global aging population.
In this article I will explore one important new facet: the increasing role of Silver Tsunami and healthy Longevity in the global finance, and how financial institutions such as investment banks, pension funds, and insurance companies, can either stagnate hit by the oncoming “Silver Tsunami” or will thrive if they will implement novel business models relevant to the new era of increased healthy Longevity.
The increasing relevance of Longevity to finance has already been well recognized among the international financial community. Each year an increasing number of forums and conferences are held on the topic; even well-renowned and respected brands such as The Economist and Financial Times are now regularly hosting conferences and panel discussions on the subject of aging and the business of Longevity. And the biggest investment and private wealth banks are issuing analytical reports for their clients on this topic, and beginning to structure new financial products.
However, a mere three years ago optimism regarding the real emergence of geroscience and Longevity was yet very low, and it was nearly unthinkable that this topic could be included at all in the agenda of major conferences and big banks. But the outlook has now changed, and healthspan extension is now a logical topic of discussion for world-leading healthcare thought-leaders. The science of aging has matured, the advanced biomedicine is actively implementing modern preventive precision medicine techniques and we are now witnessing the dawn and rise of the Longevity industry, including its financial sector, which eventually will become unprecedented by its capitalization.
The current financial system adopted its present form over 50 years ago at a time when nobody could have imagined that life expectancy could increase by much at all, let alone to the extent by which it has increased in the past 40 years. To adjust to this new reality, global financial institutions and entire nations will have to endure multiple paradigm shifts quickly to avoid stagnation within the next 10-15 years. Some countries such as Japan are already suffering from the Silver Tsunami.
One of the factors already making a significant impact on the global financial system is the gap between the rising life expectancy and HALE (Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy), QALY (Quality-Adjusted Life Years) and DALY (Disability Adjusted Life Years). Due to advances made in healthcare systems and BioPharma, people are now living longer, but not healthier, and without a corresponding increase in HALE and QALY. People are being rescued from death, and to some extent from disease, but not from general infirmity, and so their period of being economically unproductive is increasing.
The gap between life expectancy and Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE) varies widely among developed countries, and can be seen as a direct result of the relevance and proactivity of their efforts to embrace the paradigm shift from treatment to prevention and from Preventative Medicine to Precision Health. This widening gap could be considered as the rising tide of the Silver Tsunami. One of the most illustrative case-studies of this gap is Japan, which experienced an economic boom 50 years ago that nearly allowed them to exceed the USA in terms of GDP; concomitantly, Japan’s life expectancy also nearly outgrew life expectancy in the US, although without an equal increase in its citizens’ healthspan.?
This gap created a significant negative impact on Japan’s national economy, which has been stagnating for the past 20 years as a result. Japan’s government has spent massive effort on financial engineering to account for this gap, but have only succeeded in delaying the collapse of their economy, not fixing the fundamental cause behind it. Japan and its major financial institutions should be motivated more than any other nation today in adopting a combination of advancements in biomedicine and advancements in the financial sphere to synergistically avoid stagnation and collapse in the face of this big gap.
However, there are alternative positive scenarios available which are more likely to be explored by the more progressive, technocracy-driven nations and financial institutions. There are two main scenarios, described in the graph below, of how the collision of two megatrends - Advancing Biomedicine and Silver Tsunami is going to develop.?A range of novel financial institutions that could ride this rising tide are expected to appear and develop; such as Longevity-focused venture funds, Longevity-AgeTech banks, Longevity index funds and hedge funds, and even a specialized stock exchange for Longevity-focused companies and financial products.?Furthermore, the above-mentioned trends have a major influence on the development of AgeTech and WealthTech industries, analyzed in the next chapter.?
AGETECH AND WEALTHTECH
Due to the increase in life expectancy and the spread of Silver Tsunami, we can observe the development of such sectors of Longevity industry as AgeTech and WealthTech designed for people expecting to live 100 years. These three industries are expanding in a synergetic manner. Longevity enables AgeTech, AgeTech enables centenarians WealthTech, WealthTech supports Longevity. This makes their ongoing emergence and growth almost inevitable.?
One of the most notable representative examples on this matter is Centenarian club created by UBS. In April 2018, UBS Investor Watch, the world’s largest surveyor of wealthy investors, polled 5,000 high-net worth individuals (HNWIs), defined as having at least $1m in investable assets and documented the general state of individual investor optimism regarding longevity globally. The report concludes: “The idea of living a century was once confined to science fiction. But no longer. For the world’s wealthy, living a 100-year life is not an outcome they consider a mere possibility. It’s one they expect.” Thus, the report proves the optimistic expectations of investors concerning the lifespan expansion.?
AgeTech refers to the technologies and services that are directed at supporting the elderly and reducing the everyday consequences of ageing. These most typically consist of IT-related products and services, such as smartphones, tablets and computers optimized for ease-of-use for those aged 60 and over, or novel banking interfaces and services that enable the elderly to conduct their daily banking with less difficulty, and which protect them from financial fraud. AgeTech products for seniors include: Medical Alert system, Phone Amplifiers, Senior Care Robots, Walking Aids, Medication Dispensers, Smart Beds, Electric Kitchen Tools.
However, the list is not limited only to these segments. For instance, one recent trend is a growth in demand for smart homes for elderly. This is connected to the fact that some fraction of the elderly prefers staying at home for most of the time and require special care, which can be provided using AI products and services.?
WealthTech refers to any product or service that either simplifies or enhances the creation and maintenance of Wealth - from savings to investment - for all ages of society.?The term covers the new generation of financial technology companies that create digital solutions to transform the investment and asset management industry. New companies are arriving on the scene offering advice based on artificial intelligence and big data. These include:
The WealthTech industry is currently anticipating the emergence of new wealth management technologies. With the use of such technologies, and by adapting existing products and services, financial service innovators have an opportunity to greatly enhance the financial lives of the over-50s. The depth and diversity of this group create an incredible opportunity to implement innovations on their behalf and address their financial health challenges head on.
As AgeTech and WealthTech converge, the financial industry is likely to see the emergence of Age Friendly Banks, a novel type of institution focused on simplifying banking for people over 60. It would, in most respects, resemble a traditional fintech bank returned for elderly clients. One of the few remaining steps left on the road to an AgeTech Bank is the development of smartphones tailored for the elderly, an innovation which could be achieved within a year.?
What to expect from AgeTech and WealthTech in the next few years
AGETECH-LONGEVITY BANK
Technological progress brings both challenges and opportunities. In 2014 UK non-cash payments exceeded cash payments by volume for the first time. New technology holds out the promise of better, cheaper services – but only if a sufficient range of well-designed options are available for a consumer marketplace with a very diverse range of needs. The fast pace of change is difficult for many people to adjust to. Bank branch closures, for example can be particularly challenging for socially or digitally excluded older people. New technologies bring convenience, but also new opportunities for fraud and scams.?
Today we can see a significant raise of Fintech banks, redefining the banking industry by connecting with a new generation of mobile-first consumers. The brightest examples of digital banks in the UK are Revolut, Monzo, Starling Bank; in Europe - Curve and N26: in USA - BankMobile and GoBank.
Fintech banks are chasing income from the younger people, missing $15 Trillion Dollar Market opportunity, developing technology only for a limited age category.
As the share of the population above 65 is increasing in every member state of the European Union, European banks are lagging behind in finding solutions for this age group, especially taking into account the fact that seniors are holding the lion’s share of the savings. Traditional banks , as opposed to challenger banks, are making their first steps in AgeTech, adapting their infrastructure for the Elderly, for example, HSBC has partnered with the Alzheimer’s Society to create dementia-friendly products, while Barclays is actively developing software for seniors to make their customer experience more comfortable.
Fintech focused on financial wellness is just beginning to emerge. Aging baby boomers approaching retirement are interested in using tech and AI for financial planning. In a few years financial startups targeting the mass market or focusing on the Millennial generation will face consumer problem and convulsively begin to focus on the older market, while firms that target the senior segment of the population will have taken 70% of the market by this time.?
Financial companies, currently working with 55+ aged segment, are mainly focused on applying AgeTech for protecting older people’s finances while ensuring that they do not surrender their independence. An interesting point for the financial sector to note is that, according to doctors, the first easy sign to detect severe declines in cognitive abilities are the bad financial decisions that patients start to take. For instance, paying the same bill twice, being an easy victim of scams, withdrawing money for people that are taking advantage of them, etc. EverSafe is one of the companies, who prevent financial exploitation of seniors, offering a detection and alert system designed to get in front of identity theft and other financial crimes.?
In the nearest future we are expecting the groundbreaking synergy between innovative IT-technologies, wealth management, artificial intelligence and traditional banking services, designed and adapted for retirees and seniors, which will lead to creation of AgeTech-Longevity banking trend. Using progressive AgeTech technologies will make access to banking services easier, bring new simply designed products at transparent costs, and the fulfillment of typical and atypical needs will make banks old age-friendly, and establish trust and the much needed financial security among senior customers.
These new elements and segments of the novel financial system will together provide multiple types of Longevity-associated derivatives. This will spawn a whole new industry, the capitalization of which could exceed anything ever considered by financial markets. It will also produce a large quantity and diversity of derivatives, which in turn will support a second and third layers of derivatives, which in turn will give rise to the biggest possible market for derivatives imaginable.
LONGEVITY FINANCIAL DERIVATIVES AND STOCK EXCHANGE
Specialized stock exchanges are nothing new. Currently for example, investors can dig into about 50 major commodity markets worldwide. Those include markets for soft commodities such as wheat, coffee, cocoa and other agricultural products, and markets for commodities that are mined, such as gold and oil. NASDAQ fits that profile as well; it was created as a stock exchange for IT-companies and is currently the home of tech-oriented stocks.
One example is the recently launched Silicon Valley Stock Exchange backed by Marc Andreessen, and other tech heavyweights, that will give high-growth technology companies more options to list their shares outside of the traditional New York exchanges. Specialized stock exchanges typically form when an industry grows by a sufficient amount, and with the Longevity industry in its present state of maturation, a Longevity stock exchange now appears to be inevitable.?Setting up a Longevity Stock Exchange would require the public listing of at least 100 Longevity-focused companies to create good enough diversity and potential volume for trading.?
This would provide increased liquidity, which in turn would enable greater flexibility and greater leverage for the further growth of the companies listed on the exchange, and as such greater opportunities for advancement of the Longevity industry as a whole globally. Thereafter, the more advances there are in Longevity, the more even the most conservative investors will want to invest.
As the share of the elderly in the economy grows, this leads to a self-sustaining cycle of growth in the financial industry whereby the effect of aging on GDP is repeatedly offset and the resultant wealth is repeatedly reinvested into technologically reinvigorated human capital. The greater the progress in achieving healthy Longevity, the more the owners of wealth will want to invest in the labour force, which being endowed with greater healthspans, will bring further growth and even greater healthspans, and so on.?
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Why is Liquidity the Thing that is Needed to Set this Cycle in Motion?
During the past several years, a quite clear disproportion has emerged between DeepTech sectors, in particular between the Longevity startups on the one hand, and the entire business model of venture capital funds on the other. There have also been big gaps and disruptions in the global financial system. There is a highly relevant big gap between progress in science and technology, and the outdated bureaucracy in which most financial institutions remain mired, as though both exist in parallel universes.?
This is happening for multiple reasons:?
At one end, DeepTech startups (including Longevity start-ups) have been suffering from a lack of access to relevant levels of seed investment. Although venture funds by definition are supposed to prioritize investments into the most disruptive technologies and startups, in reality, most of them prefer to specifically avoid DeepTech sectors, or to enter investment rounds at much later stages. As a consequence, the startups are forced to deal with angel investors. This creates a growth gap phenomenon known as “Death Valley”: 99% of DeepTech startups do not survive the stage of the growth between seed financing and the beginning of revenue generation or even “A” rounds.?
Meanwhile, at the other end, there is an extreme abundance of significant assets being held and preserved in bank accounts or in comparatively stable derivatives on a scale of tens of trillions. For instance, there is a tremendous volume of money on the scale of at least 1 trillion euros currently being stored in Swiss bank accounts with negative interest rates, which is illogical phenomenon of a modern financial world itself. Yet the owners of these financial assets would nonetheless prefer to avoid investing them into venture funds, who are equally reluctant to invest into Longevity startups. The major source of these disproportions comes down to the issue of illiquidity.?
There are many thousands of HealthTech startups and hundreds of Longevity startups in the UK, EU, USA and Asia-Pacific region and 99% of them are not publicly traded, which means that they are limited to seeking funding from angel investors and venture investors, which represents a very small fraction of the available global wealth. This situation creates an extreme funding deficit and a major problem illiquidity.?
This is a problem facing almost all DeepTech sectors, but the negative repercussions are particularly bad for the Longevity industry, as it leads on the individual level to reduced quality of life and unnecessary deaths, and also because it threatens to inflict crippling economic effects on national healthcare systems, pension and social security systems, and economies. Furthermore, in many cases such angel and venture investors are operating as sharks, exploiting this gross illiquidity for their own financial advantage, to the detriment of Longevity and other DeepTech startups.
Extreme abundance of financial assets are preserved rather than invested.
?There are enormous amounts of financial assets, being conserved within the umbrella of family offices (and we can estimate that there are around 5,000 of these) and hundreds of very conservative financial institutions, which hoard this capital simply due to a lack of safe, stably growing and predictable financial derivatives into which to invest. There is no relevant methodology to assess the amount of such assets, as they tend to keep this a secret. But this is at least several tens of trillions of dollars.?
At the same time, many owners of these vast sums of wealth are nonetheless personally interested in Longevity, both as a prospective market with the capacity for unprecedented growth, and as a means to their own personal life extension. Even the most conversative investors, and the owners of the largest financial assets, now very clearly understand that the industries of AI and Longevity, separately, are two of the most prospective and relevant sectors to invest in, with full confidence that such investments will lead to relatively low-risk and stable profitability in the long term. However, due to the lack of liquid tradable instruments related to the AI and Longevity industries, owners and managers of these assets still prefer to avoid any significant investments into these sectors.
Therefore, financial innovations that can provide liquidity to Longevity companies and technologies, and form a bridge between the Longevity industry and conservative financial markets, would inevitably enable the injection of something around 1% of the tens of trillions of dollars currently lying inert as "lazy money" within the global Longevity Industry. In practice this means once such liquidity bridge will be established it will have immediate ability to attract around 300-500 billions dollars, pessimistically just within the first few years and at least several trillions within 5-7 years horizon.
Currently the typical approach of these family offices and large financial institutions is to allocate 10% into alternative investments. Our most pessimistic estimate is that 10% of that wealth (and 1% of the multi-trillion total) could be reasonably invested into the Longevity industry, but only under one very specific condition: that mechanisms exist to provide investors with enough liquidity to be able to withdraw at least some of their investment within more reasonable timeframes than the typical lock-in periods of venture capital firms.
We could expect that 90% of that wealth would be invested into tradable financial synthetic instruments and derivatives built on top of the Longevity industry's companies, products, services, science and technology, and 10% as actual equity investment into the companies directly.
Considering the current natural pace of innovation in the Longevity and Financial industries, even without any specific innovations in the Invest-Tech field the current problem of illiquidity will likely be resolved naturally 7 to 10 years, but with these new bridges in place within 3 to 5 years. It is important that these solutions take into account the interests of both groups - startups, wishing to acquire additional funding, and conservative investors wishing to keep their funds in secure tradable financial instruments.?
In the meantime, one method of dealing with illiquidity is the creation of more modern hybrid investment funds, which would serve as the above-mentioned bridge between conservative investors and Longevity startups, and can provide more liquidity for investors (LP’s) in comparison with the usual venture funds. Elements of such solutions are already present in other industries and can be returned and further improved using the modern tools of financial engineering and Invest-Tech.?
A second, more innovative method of neutralizing these disproportions and inefficiencies would be the establishment of a specialized stock exchange for Longevity startups. Such an entity would be the first of its kind in the world, and if it is supported by key government officials, and integrated with the Longevity startups ecosystem, it could easily secure the position as a leading, progressive Longevity financial hub.?
AIM (Alternative Investment Market - which is a subsidiary exchange of the London Stock Exchange) is one of the relevant examples, which is helping developing London as progressive hub of Europe providing simplified ways for mid level companies to become public.
It would also benefit the regional financial markets, enabling a multiplicative leap in the development of the host nation’s health care, preventive medicine, precision health, Longevity and financial industries. This specialized stock exchange focused on Longevity companies should aim to make IPOs for at least 100 Longevity startups within several years of its launch, and the launch of specialized financial derivatives with ties to the nation’s industry, and the subsequent launch of several specialized Longevity ETF’s (exchange traded funds).?
The ultimate goal of this project would be the deployment of a Longevity Industry index (similar to the NASDAQ-Composite, which serves as an indicator of expectations on the growth of the USA tech industry).?
The nation and stock exchange that does this would be capable of attracting up to 1 trillion dollars of investment into the Longevity index within the next 5-7 years, guaranteeing nearly unlimited opportunities for the growth of its Longevity, Preventive Medicine and Precision Health industries beyond any current expectations, its only potential obstacles being global black swans such as unprecedented, global financial recessions.
The first nation to establish a specialized Longevity Stock exchange will have effectively created something resembling a perpetual motion machine for the further growth of its national Longevity industry, having built an engine for providing its companies with sufficient investment and accelerating the market-readiness of their technologies, products and services.
The nation that establishes marketplaces for both shares in publicly-traded Longevity companies and for financial instruments and derivatives built as a second layer upon its Longevity industry, would be capable of attracting several trillions of potential wealth that is currently inaccessible and locked away.
To take this concept even further, if that nation were to then build a Longevity Index as a second layer on top of this Longevity Stock Exchange, to create the analogue of a NASDAQ composite for its HealthTech, Preventive Medicine, Precision Health and Longevity industries, this could become one of the most predictable, stably growing and rapidly-growing investment opportunities, capable of attracting trillions of pounds worth of lazy money from conservative investors. Furthermore, because Longevity is very much a science and technology-driven industry, it is much, much more simply predictable than for example the larger tech market or real estate market.
The Longevity industry will inevitably exhibit growth, for the following reasons:
Longevity Stock Exchange and Longevity Composite Index -
A specialized Longevity Stock Exchange will be a marketplace for tradable financial instruments, securities and derivatives tied to the Longevity sector, such as the Longevity Index.?
Financial reforms described in this article can realistically only be implemented in progressive countries led by technocracy-driven governments.?
Several countries are working on establishing the grounds for fruitful future Longevity-related financial products and instruments, such as Switzerland for example. Switzerland in particular has all the elements necessary to become a leading Longevity financial hub, due to such factors as a lean political system that facilitates rapid implementation of integrated government programs, a strong research environment for geroscience, a strong research and business environment for digital health, and most importantly, international financial prowess.?
Some specific programs that Switzerland has the power to develop in the next several years include development of a national industrial strategy for healthy Longevity for intensively developing its geroscience, advanced biomedicine and integration with FinTech and progressive financial industry to a state so advanced that it propels Switzerland into a central role in the internationally competitive Longevity business ecosystem, where it can rise to become a global leader in the specific field of the Longevity finance.
Many people predict that only the rich will have access to life extension and the poor will not be able to afford it, leading to social disparities. The more realistic scenario is that due to its desirability and its usefulness, Longevity technologies will simply get cheaper. This was the case with cell phones. When they first appeared, they were affordable only to the relatively wealthy or were exclusive tools of business. But now a mere forty years after their introduction into mainstream circulation, they are ubiquitous and cheap. The same logic applies to Longevity technologies.
Over the course of the next decade or so, as such technologies become more standardized and better refined, they will become more affordable to all income groups.
Would not increased life expectancy lead to overpopulation and exacerbate the pollution problem??
The belief that increased life expectancy automatically leads to overpopulation and pollution is based on the false premise that current birth rates are independent of the biological clock. Whereas it is in fact well established that current birthrates are immensely influenced by a personal awareness on the part of both parents of the narrow window of opportunity presented by biological aging and its limits on fertility. With women in particular there is a now-or-never factor involved with the decision to procreate within the first forty years of life.
It is not clear whether - to give a hypothetical example - everyone were granted indefinite youth and fertility, average birth rates would have to be measured in terms of centuries or millennia. To some considerable extent (though not precisely known) less aging means longer fertility which means less frequent birth. And fertility is one of the very things which the Longevity industry is specifically attempting to extend. We know enough about the nature of aging to know that any comprehensive life extending set technologies would contain at least the promise of extending fertility also. Furthermore, history has repeatedly demonstrated that the speed of technological development is often more than enough to address the temporary challenges posed by population explosions. Indeed periods of technological improvement and population increase tend to coincide. In 10 years we will be living in a world of robotics and nanotechnologies. These industries will be attracting significant funds and thus are likely to achieve the resolution of these problems.
In a world of Longevity Finance, which will be the more precious asset for investment - physical wealth (such as real estate), or health (if indeed it becomes a new asset class)??
Health is expected to become a much more profitable asset for investment than physical wealth. Previously it was common to invest in real estate or other tangible assets to preserve wealth. One of the reasons for that was that it could be inherited within families. When it is possible to expand healthy life span, there is no need for private transfers. Thus, health becomes the new wealth and the priorities for investments change.
What is Longevity escape velocity and why does it matter a lot for the financial Longevity industry??
The principle of “Longevity Escape Velocity” dictates that with every passing year, further progress in technology further increases the current healthy life expectancy of a given individual. For as long as such a situation is sustained, wealth preservation is of less subjective meaning and value to that individual. What will come to matter much more than material wealth is the extent to which an individual can support the level of their health, happiness and other parameters. That is why it is worth investing in research into healthy life extension, by investing in the companies which are developing the necessary products and services to take us there.
What is the most efficient and ethical way of conducting business and generating high profits and at the same time delivering effective altruism in practice?
?To work in the Longevity industry, and particularly in its financial sector is:?
Conclusion summary
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This article was written by?Margaretta Colangelo.?Margaretta is Co-founder and CEO of?Jthereum an enterprise Blockchain technology company. She is associate editor at AI Time Journal and serves on the advisory board of the AI Precision Health Institute at the University of Hawai?i?Cancer Center. She is based in San Francisco.?@realmargaretta