A ca­reer in can­cer re­search turns out to be the per­fect prep for a gru­el­ing per­son­al ad­ven­ture

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Ed­i­tor’s note: Not long af­ter Kris­ten Hege sat down with a pan­el of R&D ex­perts I’d mar­shaled at JP Mor­gan to dis­cuss the chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties in ear­ly-stage can­cer R&D, she reached out to me about her de­ci­sion to put her ca­reer on hold to hike the en­tire Pa­cif­ic Crest Trail — all 2,658 miles of it. On Sat­ur­day, she be­gan the long march, plan­ning to make her way along a trail that was cur­rent­ly ei­ther burn­ing with desert heat or packed with snow. She want­ed to ex­plain to the in­dus­try why she was do­ing this and how it re­lates to R&D. And I ea­ger­ly ac­cept­ed the first of sev­er­al columns — which you can see be­low — we plan to pub­lish in the months ahead.

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