Alex Aller, Ph.D., Cancer Researcher & Yachter Charter Captain

CONTACT Dr. Aller

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-aller-ph-d-799227175/

TRANSCRIPT 

This is a transcript from The Floridaville podcast.  This transcript was created using artificial intelligence so it may not be an accurate account of what was recorded.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  0:08 

This is the Floridaville.  Get to know the people behind the Florida names you know. I'm your host, ROSANNA CATALANO. On today's episode, we get to know DR. DR. ALEX ALLER, a cancer researcher who's working on a team that's creating a cancer vaccine.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  0:36 

We are here in Tampa, Florida and our guest today is ALEX ALLER. Welcome to the show.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER:

Thanks so much for having me, Ro. DR.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

ALEX ALLER is the Director of Business Development at a clinical stage company developing novel cell and gene therapies. Can you tell our listeners in layman's terms what cancer is and why do some get it and others don't?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  1:00 

Sure. Well, cancer as most of you know is an uncontrolled growth of cells.   It can be a breast cell, it can be a prostate cell, it can be any cell in your body can go wild. When they grow wild and they form a tumor, they start growing uncontrolled. And that's the problem. Cells start to grow uncontrolled, starts with a few cells, that's not a big deal. Once they start multiplying, and they don't stop, that's when you get a tumor formed, or in the case of leukemia, is it takes over your blood. The problem is that the cells are growing uncontrolled. Now, what would cause a cell to grow uncontrolled? Well, there's really only one thing that can do that. And that is mutations in the DNA. The DNA is what codes for all the proteins in your body and what makes you who you are and what makes any cell what it is. So you've got this DNA in there and it codes for all the different things that make a cell the cell. Make you you. And what happens every now and then is you'll get mutations in this DNA. I'll get into that in just a minute. A lot of these mutations are just, don't do anything. Some of them will cause the cell to die.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  2:00 

Some of the mutations don't do anything at all, every now and then you'll get a mutation that will cause the cell to stop dying, basically, because most of the cells in your body are replaced fairly regularly. So if you get a mutation that causes the cell to stop dying, that just sits there, and maybe you get another mutation that might cause it to grow a little. And then you get another mutation that might cause it to grow a lot. And that's when you get a tumor, or a leukemia. We're mostly gonna talk about tumors here today. So you get these cells that are growing uncontrolled due to mutations in the DNA. But then the question comes, where do these mutations come from? And how do you get the mutations? There's basically two ways for that to happen. One is you have a natural rate of mistakes when the DNA is being copied to make another cell for whatever it is.  If you're going to make a breast cell or make a lung cell or something else. You get a mutation or a natural rate that causes mutations just when they're being copied. So this is an inherent natural rate of mutations that happens because like I said,

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  3:00 

a lot of times these mutations are corrected. We have lots of mechanisms to correct those mutations correct the mistakes your body makes. And but sometimes those don't work either. So every now and then you have a natural rate of mutations in the DNA. This has been going on and every creature forever and ever.  What is the second way that you get mutations is our environment. And this is what we're mostly aware of what most people think about when they think about what causes cancer. You can get mutations from the air you breathe, or the car exhaust. You can get mutations from things you eat, or bad chemicals in anything, and your food and your water. You can get mutations, through anything that you apply on your skin, you can get mutations from the sun's rays on your skin. So all of these different things that are part of your environment, will cause mutations in the DNA. So that's the bottom line. People say what causes cancer? Well, mutations in the DNA is the bottom line, but what causes the mutations

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  4:00 

In the DNA?  Two things: your heredity and your environment.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO:

How does the immune system react to cancer?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER

Your immune system can recognize cancer.   Immune system recognizes cancer every day.  Every day, you're getting mutations in your DNA. And your immune system recognizes these as foreign because they're growing, they're funny, they're growing strange.  Your immune system can come in and attack those and destroy them. And this happens fairly regularly happens to all of us.  The immune system is attacking the DNA.

ROSANNA CATALANO:

Tell me why some people's immune system react differently to cancer cells?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER

Again, your immune system can recognize the tumors and destroy them. Obviously, not all the time. Otherwise, we wouldn't have cancer. But you do have an immune system and most tumors have the immune system cells or white cells. The white cells are part of your immune system. Normally those are called T cells, maybe if people have heard of T cells, but these are the immune system cells that recognize cancer.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  5:00 

But, they don't always recognize and destroy the cancer. Almost every tumor has these T cells in it. So now you've got an immune system that may or may not recognize the cancer and destroy it. What are two of the things that can make your immune system strong or weak? Again, it's two things. It's your heredity. Some people inherit a stronger immune system than others. That's a whole research subject, I assure you, but some people's immune system is just naturally stronger than others. Again, the other part is your environment. Just like the causes cancer, this causes the strength or weaken your immune system. What could cause your immune system to be strong or weak? Okay, what can cause it to be strong is take your vitamins, workout, do cardio, eat, right? Do the right things to your body that we all know. What can cause your immune system to be weak? Smoking cigarettes, sitting on the couch, eating bad food. Again, a lot of these things are double hits, because they'll cause the cancer and they'll also inhibit your immune response. What's about the worst thing you can do?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  6:00 

Smoke cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes will not only induce the mutations, cause the cancer to go wild. But it also inhibits your immune response. So smoking cigarettes is just about the worst. As a cancer researcher that just freaks me out when I see people smoking cigarettes for those two reasons. Now, what we're doing these days is we recognize that there is an immune response to cancer.  We do have white cells in a lot of our tumors. Some of these tumors have a lot of white cells in them. Some of them just have a few. A lot of these tumors are ongoing necrosis, which is when the white cells are gobbling up tumor cells, but obviously not fast enough, or you wouldn't have a tumor in the first place. So what is happening these days in cancer research is we're looking at ways to strengthen the immune system. We're trying to strengthen immune response. Now, one of the problems with cancer and one of the problems that cancer does on its own is the cancer, the tumor cells will make things that inhibit the immune response. So the cancer actually has proteins on its

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  7:00 

Surface, has stuff on its surface and also secrete stuff. It's slowed down that immune response. So the cancers are not just sitting there growing. They're not only sitting there growing, but they're recruiting blood cells to themselves. They're also secreting proteins, secreting things that inhibit the immune response. So you've got now, you've got these white cells in there, but the tumor itself is causing those white cells to not do their job. What we've done, we, the industry and other scientists, have identified certain of these molecules on the cancer cells that stop the immune response. These are called checkpoints, because they actually put a checkpoint, stopping the immune response. So what we've done, once we've done identified some of those checkpoints, now, companies have come out with checkpoint inhibitors. So now what the main, one of the main focuses and some of the most popular cancer drugs these days are checkpoint inhibitors.  WHat they do is that they

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  8:00 

go in and stop the checkpoint. They go in and they block the proteins, the molecules on the surface of the tumor that cause the immune response to not work. So now the immune response can kick back in.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO:

Is there a certain point in a tumors progression when it's best to introduce a checkpoint inhibitor?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER

Yes, but the sooner the better. Obviously, you know, some will grow fast and some will grow slow. Some will have a lot of white cells in them ,some won't.  The ones that are growing fast and that have a lot of white cells in them actually are easier to treat with this checkpoint inhibitors. So the timing of it has more to do with the growth of the tumor and how the body is recognizing and destroying that. So yes and no, not like there's a certain point in the tumors progression that drugs are going to work better. You want to get any cancer as soon as you can, and a lot of these drugs and a lot of these new checkpoint inhibitors, other immune stimulators,

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  9:00 

are kind of universal. So they'll do a good job, no matter what the timing of the tumor is. Now, the problem is, some of these tumors have a lot of white cells in them. Some of them don't. If the tumors don't have a lot of white cells in them in the first place, they don't have an immune response going on in the first place. And the checkpoint inhibitors aren't going to work. Because that's not the problem. You don't have an immune response going on. The tumor is not inhibiting an immune response, because it's not there. Unfortunately, that's a large percent of tumors. These are what we call cold tumors, ones that are kind of slow growing, they don't have a lot of white cells going on in the first place. And those are what we call cold tumors.  There's different ones -Pancreatic cancer typically doesn't have that. Melanoma typically does have quite a bit of immune system cells. And those are what we call hot tumors. So what we're trying to do is identify patients who have those hot tumors and treat those with the checkpoint inhibitors, because we know that those are going to work. So now we get into

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  10:00 

what we're looking at called biomarkers. And these are proteins that are in the blood or stuff that's on the tumor, that you're going to look and say, okay, yes, this patient is a good candidate for therapy. Only working in about 20% of patients.   80% of patients, it's not very effective, because you don't have a lot going on in the first place. So other companies are trying to prime that immune response, trying to start an immune response in the tumor, and then the checkpoint inhibitors can come along and stop that tumor from inhibiting an immune response.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

How do you prime an immune response in a tumor?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  10:41 

Well, there's several ways to do it. And a lot of them involve just putting stuff into the tumor itself, that will cause the tumor to make things that will attract immune system cells. There's companies out there that are doing that. And this is a hot field of research. Now, because now that we have the checkpoint inhibitors, what we want to do is get that going,

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  11:00 

get that immune response going in the first place. So we can inject the tumors directly, or we can put stuff in the blood that will go to the tumors and cause the immune system to start to kick in, cause white cells to be recruited to that tumor. So that's one way to do that. That's a hot areas of research is how do we do that? How do we start that immune response?

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

The research into immune response, biomarkers and checkpoint inhibitors, are they all under the umbrella of immunotherapy?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER

Actually, what all this is is immunotherapy.  And the beauty of immunotherapy is once you get an immune response going, alright, say you got a melanoma on your skin, and we can treat that we can stick stuff in it and make it cause an immune response. Now you've got an immune response going. And so what can happen is these white cells that are now attacking that one tumor that you treated on the skin, those white cells can then travel throughout the body and recognize the other tumors that have already spread to other parts of the body. So now what you've got

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  12:00 

is a universal immune response.  You've got the white cells, first they get going, they get going because of what we did to that tumor. And then they can keep going, because now they're their immune system cells. It's like, if you had a bacterial infection or something, you know, the white cells are going to go all over the body. And now they're going to start recognizing these mets, metastatic tumors, ones that have spread.  Your white system cells can recognize those and attack and destroy them. Basically, that's going to be the cure for cancer.  I never, ever am allowed to say the word cure. We don't say that in research. We say treat. But I'm an optimist. And I'm talking about further down the road. Hopefully, cancer will become a manageable disease. Much like other diseases we have now that we're treating.  Diabetes,  even AIDS.   HIV is now more manageable disease and isn't an instant death sentence.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

 As a lay person, we hear the term clinical trial in reference to cancer research. Can you tell us what that means? What are the different phases of clinical trials and who can participate?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  13:00 

Yeah, sure, thank you. Um, there's essentially three phases of clinical trials, phase one, phase two, phase three, and then you go to commercialization. And this is all through the FDA. Because the FDA, the first thing the FDA wants to do is make sure people are safe, make sure that these new drugs were given are causing the disease to be worse, or killing the patients. So phase one clinical trials, the very first time a company develops a new therapy or new chemical or a new immunotherapy.  Have to just give some to some patients that may or may not have the disease, a lot of phase ones, people don't have the disease. Some phase ones, they certainly do have the disease. So you give them the new therapy, just to be sure it's safe. That's usually 6,10, 20 patients, something like that in phase one. So this is a small clinical trial. You're not trying to cure the patient. You're not trying to cure the disease, you're just making sure that you don't cause any harm. Phase one by definition is do no harm. Then you get into phase two and phase two can be

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  14:00 

20,50, maybe 100 patients, something like that. And phase two is where you're actually are starting to treat the disease. And that's when you start doing dose escalations or increasing doses. And chemotherapy, you have to be real careful, because obviously, we know chemotherapy can make people sick and kill them by themselves. But with the new immunotherapies, now, a lot of the immunotherapies, I've said, you know, you've inhibited, you've augmented the immune response of some of the immunotherapies can cause autoimmune disease, some of the immunotherapies can cause the immune system to go wild.  Because now you've taken the brakes off of the immune response. So all of these so these are things that are worked out in phase two. Also, you can do combination therapies in phase two, like I was talking about earlier, where you want to prime the tumor, buying the cancer, and then attack it by stopping the inhibition of the immune response. So all these combinations such are in phase two.

And phase three is where everybody's really trying to prove that your new drug works and so that can be 100 to 1000 patients.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  15:00 

 A thousands a big number. Hundreds of patients. And again, depending on how successful it is dependent on how safe it is, the FDA can let you go after that to commercialization.  Now one of the things the FDA has done recently is they've got Fast Track status for some of these drugs.   These are the ones that are like the immunotherapies that are so effective, and in general so safe, it can get through Phase One, two and three, a lot quicker than in the past. So we got fast track, we've got a couple other designations that will allow a company or drug company or drug to move through these clinical trial phases very quickly. So the FDA has really come on board. And I know a lot of people think of them as the big bad guy who's going to stop things but actually these days, they're helping the drugs move very quickly. Some of the administrators in the FDA are very company friendly and doing a real good job.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

You use the word quickly. I know each clinical trial is unique but for those of us not in the industry,

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  16:00 

can you give us an idea of an average time the clinical process takes?  Less than five years?

 

Yeah, less than five years.  A few years, these days, a couple years. You can go from phase one to phase two in a year. And then when you're in phase two, and now you're starting to treat patients, you start to see really good efficacy, like what happened with checkpoint inhibitors. And a year later, they're in phase three a year after that their commercial. Realize that they're different, what we call indications which are diseases so you can get a drug approved for say melanoma. And if a checkpoint inhibitors, you get approved for melanoma, and then you say, well, let's try head and neck cancers. Let's try breast cancer. Let's try something else. And if it works well in those and you've already proven safety in your phase one, phase two, man, you can get approvals like that. Some of the new checkpoint inhibitors, one of them's made by Merck, and it's called Keytruda. Another one's made by Bristol Myers, and it's called up Opdivo. These things are racking up new indications every couple of months.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  17:02 

Just sitting here I can see how excited you are about what you do and the advances being made in cancer research. Everyone knows someone impacted by cancer. Is this personal to you in some way?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER:

Boy, is it ever. I've watched my mother, my father and my beautiful little sister die in my arms. It's been, it's, that's why I went back. I went back when I was 32. To try and learn how to cure my sister. She lived a long time. She lived a long time from that. So yeah, it's very, very personal. My family and I were very, very close. It was just the four of us, my mother, my father, my sister and me. And we had a wonderful life. I was always told I could do anything and here I am out here trying to do it.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO:

That's amazing.

 

COMMERCIAL  17:46 

This episode of The Floridaville is brought to you by Rocket Ship Consultants. Let us help you launch your career, your business, your political campaign, or your podcast. For more information, visit our website at rocketshipconsultants.com.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  18:05 

When I met you a couple years ago, you were making a living on the high seas as a boat captain running your own yacht charter company in the Florida Keys. How did you go from being outside wearing flip flops in the Florida Keys to being in an office building wearing a tie in Tampa working in cancer research?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER

Well, I basically learned, started learn about immunotherapy and I've always kind of kept my finger on it. Read a little bit, read a little here there and I got an opportunity to come back and jumped on it.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

You had mentioned that when you were 32 you went back to school to get your doctorate. Tell us how your professional career has meandered? Let's start at the beginning and how about you tell me where you went to undergrad?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  18:54 

Okay, I went undergrad at the University of Florida.

 

graduated with my bachelor's degree when I was 21. I was working in research

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  19:00 

Then I got my master's degree, the age of 22. Having published two papers in the American Journal of veterinary research, I've got my masters in veterinary toxicology, studying the effects of different poisons and how we could stop that. So then I traveled the country for several years. So 22 year old tending bar all around the country with a master's degree in veterinary toxicology, having spent first 20 some odd years in college, seemed that way. So I did that, then I sold medical equipment for several years. And when I was 32, that's when Helen developed cancer

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

 and Helens your sister?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER

Helen’s my sister. Yeah, that's when I quit my job selling medical equipment in South Florida and moved back to Gainesville to be with my family and go back to college. Spent the next six years in grad school, six or seven years, a long time in grad school. And then having had the business experience I was hired straight out of grad school to be the assistant director of a small Cancer Research Center in Fort Lauderdale, the Goodwin Institute for Cancer Research and

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  20:00 

So I worked there for a few years then I worked and got offered a job in Birmingham, Alabama at Southern Research Institute. So I went up there and I was head of a group called Cell Biology and Immunology and Department of Cancer Therapeutics. So we did cancer research. Then I got the opportunity to come back as executive director of the Goodwin Institute and really make a difference. And I did and so I moved back to cancer research for a while.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  20:25 

My sister died in that period, as had my mom and my father. And so it was just me and I was almost 50 years old, and I said, let's go do something else. I've always made radical changes in my life. Like I say, 20 through 22 was college. 22 – 25 I was tending bar,  25 to 32 was selling medical equipment.  32 to 40 was grad school again. 40 to 50 was cancer research. 50 was now charter boat captain and now 60 I’m back doing cancer research. It's crazy.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  21:00 

I've had a lot of fun. I've never been married, never had kids. So that's allowed me to do whatever the heck I want.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

When you spoke about your family a little bit ago, you got a little choked up. Tell us about your childhood and your parents. What was your life like growing up? And were you a fan of science?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER

 Oh, yeah, I was always been a fan of Science. I love to say I was raised by Ward and June cleaver. So those of you who don't know what that means, there was a show called Leave it to Beaver. And every day Ward would come home and say Honey, I'm home and the mom would be there with the two kids and that's how I was raised. I was raised with so much love. My parents met in the seventh grade. They were together till they died. And it was wonderful. I was raised with so much love and so much encouragement. I was always told to do that I can do whatever I want. So I did several times. And it was it was a wonderful way to grow up. I always had everything I wanted. We weren't rich, but we weren't poor. My father was an electrical engineer with Southern Bell and we just, I was just raised with a lot of love and always around and

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  22:00 

It was great. I, I guess the bottom line is I carry that with me still all that confidence and the love that they instilled in me. I'm ready to go at the drop of a hat with just about anything that I feel like I can do. And if I can make a difference.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

 I can relate to that. There's nothing like growing up in a house filled with love and being an adult now, I can really appreciate it.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  22:21 

Not many people get the opportunity to step back from a career path, go down a fork in the road, and then rejoin their original career path. Were these career transitions easy for you?

DR. ALEX ALLER  22:33 

Oh, nothing's easy. Nothing's easy. No. It's never been easy. It's always a lot of soul searching when you're going to do something like that. I mean, I quit a job at 49 as executive director of the Goodwin Institute for Cancer Research to go run charters in Key West. That was quite a

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  22:50 

thrill. And it was it was difficult, but I knew I could do it.  Like I said, just from what my parents had always told me and what I've been taught, so you have to look at it.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  23:00 

What if I don't do it? How much will I regret? What will I look back on my life and regret not doing for me? I can't even think of anything I regret not doing because I've just jumped on everything. I mean, you know, made a lot of money. Lost it.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  23:14 

So it's always a challenge. But if the right opportunity presents itself, you got to go for it. Because if you don't, you'll always wonder what happened and later in life, you know, what if I'd done that, you know, I've certainly have options that I could have taken. Best friend in high school, ended up being the drummer in Tom Petty and tried to teach me how to play drums and I told him, Stan, you're going to be a poor musician all your life and I'm going to be a hotshot researcher. Now I'm a poor researcher, and he's a hotshot musician. So I wonder what if I paid attention to Stan and played drums? You know, I don't know. But I didn't.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

Would you consider yourself an entrepreneur?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  23:48 

Ah, I've never made any money. I think I think that by definition, you have to make money to be an entrepreneur, and I'm really good at making money but I lose it. I spend it.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  24:00 

I’ve made poor investments.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  24:02 

I don't know, I think you'd have to. I think you'd have to have made some money to be an entrepreneur. I've taken a lot of challenges, but I've know I've made money, but I've never really kept track of it, though. Don't think so.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  24:15 

Getting back to your work in cancer research, what can we expect to see in cancer research advances in the next 5, 10 or 25 years?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER

It's going to explode. The reason I went back to get my degree in immunology is once we master the immune system, we're done. That's going to be it because the immune system and defects in the immune system are not just cancer, but infectious diseases. Why do we get infectious disease? Because your immune system doesn't get it.  Viral, viruses, bacteria, all of those are evading the immune system. Cancer is evading the immune system. Everything except trauma surgery and neonates. I had a neonate nurse corrected me when I said it's just trauma surgery. So anyway, in cancer, we're going to continue down this immunology path.   If you look if you google current Cancer Research,

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  25:00 

it's all immunology, it's all immunotherapy, almost.  There are still some chemotherapies out there that are being used, because a lot of these are just coming down the pipe. But in five years, these things will be there. And once we learn how to prime the immune response, and then stimulate the immune response, and monitor the immune response, cancer is just going to be a manageable disease. And we're going to be fine with it. Now you're always going to get it because remember, I told you that you have got to get those mutations in your DNA from the environment, from whatever.  You're going to get it it's going to start but we're going to be able to just go Oh yeah, now here look like Star Trek.  Of course I’m an optimist.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  25:32 

We like to end our show with a little bit of fun by asking all our guests the same seven questions. What would people be surprised to know about you?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  25:42 

My real name is Walter William Aller, Jr.  Everybody knows me as Alex from the time I was 22 till now. My name has been Alex. So my legal name shocks most people.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

When you have guests in town, where is your favorite place to take them out on my boat?

 

ALEX ALLER

On my boat!

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  26:00 

Well I expect an invitation.

 

ALEX ALLER

Let's go. Let's go.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

What is the name of a book you recently read that you could not put down? Or the name of a show you enjoyed binge watching?

 

ALEX ALLER

Oh, well, I all I do is read. I haven't owned a TV for 15 years. I moved out of a house 15 years ago, left the TV there and haven't had one since.  I do have a huge screen for my Netflix, of course. Right now I'm reading a Montague and Strong which was a detective story, except the detectives are a super powerful mage and an immortal who has incredible strength.  So it's all sci fi. I get enough of the real world at work.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

 Among your close family and friends. What are you best known for?

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  26:40 

Oh, boy, I guess high energy, fun, nice guy, a gentlemen. I opened doors.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  26:50 

We talked about your nickname being Alex, and that this is a nickname you gave yourself. I'm used to asking people if they have a nickname and who gave it to them.  I wasn't expecting anyone to say they gave it to themselves. But I guess that is your answer.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  27:00 

I was Billy until I was in my teens, and then I was called Bill through my teens. And when I was traveling after I got my master's degree I traveled, I was working in a restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  A guy said, what should I call you? I said, Bill. He said, Well, I've got three Bills already. I'm going to call you Walter. And I said, No, call me Alex.   Just out of the air. And that was 40 years ago.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

If you knew you could not fail. What would you attempt?

 

ALEX ALLER

Cure cancer! Come on.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO  27:35 

What are the top three things you love about living in Florida?

 

ALEX ALLER:

I love the warm weather. I lived in Michigan. I don't like cold at all. I love being out on the ocean. Obviously.  Charter boat captain, I love being in the ocean. And I love the Florida Keys.

 

ROSANNA CATALANO

Thank you for being on our show today. It's been an absolute pleasure.

 

DR. ALEX ALLER  28:06 

Thank you very much for having me, Ro.

 

OUTRO

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