Daniel Kraft on Singularity 1 on 1: You Don’t Have To Be a Doctor to Improve Health Care

by Socrates on January 31, 2012

This morning I interviewed Daniel Kraft for Singularity 1 on 1.

I met Dr. Kraft at Singularity University where he is the Medicine and Neuroscience Chair and executive director of the FutureMed Program. Daniel is one of those people with an incredibly diverse spectrum of talents and interests for he is not only a medical doctor and oncologist but also an inventor, a technology and space enthusiast, an entrepreneur and an F-16 flight surgeon.

During our conversation we discuss a variety of topics such as: Daniel’s early interest and talent in technology and science; his original fascination with the Apollo Space program and eventual participation in International Space University; his passion for flying and being a pilot; his medical education and personal journey to becoming a faculty member at Singularity University; his desire to be an instigator, connector and motivator of innovation; the story behind as well as the purpose and structure of the FutureMed program; bone marrow harvesting, regenerative medicine and stem cell research; longevity and the future of medicine and health care; his greatest inspiration and concerns about the field of medicine and his belief that one doesn’t have to be a doctor to improve health care.

(As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full.)

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Who is Daniel Kraft?

Daniel Kraft is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur and innovator.

Dr. Kraft has over 20 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research and healthcare innovation.  Daniel chairs the Medicine track for Singularity University and is Executive Director for FutureMed, a program which explores convergent, exponentially developing technologies and their potential in biomedicine and healthcare.

Following undergraduate degrees at Brown and medical school at Stanford, Dr. Kraft was board certified in the Harvard combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency program at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital. He went on to complete Stanford fellowships in hematology/oncology & bone marrow transplantation, and extensive research in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.  He has multiple scientific publications (including in Nature and Science), medical device, immunology and stem cell related patents through faculty positions with Stanford University School of Medicine and as clinical faculty for the pediatric bone marrow transplantation service at UCSF.

Dr. Kraft recently founded IntelliMedicine, focused on enabling connected, data driven, and integrated personalized medicine. He is also the inventor of the MarrowMiner, an FDA approved device for the minimally invasive harvest of bone marrow, and founded RegenMed Systems, a company developing technologies to enable adult stem cell based regenerative therapies.

Daniel is an avid pilot and serves in the California Air National guard as an officer and flight surgeon with an F-16 fighter Squadron. He has conducted research on aerospace medicine that was published with NASA, with whom he was a finalist for astronaut selection.

Daniel Kraft on Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cells:

Daniel Kraft at TED:

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  • http://cmstewartwrite.wordpress.com/ CMStewart

    Yet another great interview with someone who undoubtedly has less than zero time to spare. ;) You must have incredible powers of persuasion, Nikola!

    I’m impressed with Kraft’s energy and enthusiasm. He cured rats of hay fever? I wonder if the method he used is similar to the allergy immunotherapy I’m getting- a five-year injection plan.

    BTW, the Singularity Weblog trailer looks great!

  • http://www.singularityweblog.com/ Socrates

     Thank you Cynthia,

    Very happy you like the video!

    As per “my powers of persuasion” my secret is simple:

    I pick great guests who are genuinely nice people and often are willing to rearrange their schedules for the interview despite being consistently busy. So after I take the first step of asking I often take a few other steps in persisting and eventually things come together ;-) ….

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