Thomas De Raedt, MSE, Ph.D., is a leading cancer researcher and an Investigator at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Center for Childhood Cancer Research . Dr. De Raedt joined CHOP from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow. He earned his Master’s degree in Engineering of Cell and Gene Biotechnology from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in Leuven, Belgium and his Ph.D. in Medical Sciences at the same institution in the Lab of Dr. Eric Legius, working on Neurofibromatosis type I. In this conversation, we discuss the state of cancer research in America, controversies over the direction of that research and the specific work he is doing in his lab. It was an honor to have the conversation with someone at the cutting edge of cancer research.