In the months after his father died of complications from pancreatic cancer, Reed Jobs found it difficult to go back to life as it was before.
He was a sophomore studying biology at Stanford University and, up until October 2011, had always planned to pursue a career in cancer research. His father had been diagnosed when he was a preteen and he had spent much of his adolescence thinking about treatments and clinical trials, like many people whose parents are diagnosed with the disease during their childhood.
But one of his parents was Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, which gave the younger Jobs an unusually close-up view of the latest developments in cancer research. At one point in May 2011, the younger Jobs had a seat at the table with his father and experts from Stanford, Harvard University, and MIT, who had been enlisted to scout out the best treatment options for the ailing tech giant.