>> yes. >> looks like a happy dog. a happy clone. >> that's all for now, i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. tonight nbc news goes on assignment. >> i think people have an idea that this is some frankenstein factory. >> harry smith is inside the only place in the world where they'll do this -- >> looks like a happy dog. >> -- clone your pet. >> six of them? all clones? >> yes, they're all clones. >> genetic carbon copies of cute puppies and rough and ready crime fighters. >> those are some serious jaws. >> what might they clone next? >> it would be an amazing feat, an impossible feat. >> keith morrison reports on the challenge of a lifetime. >> nobody's ever done it before.

>> tech billionaire of facebook and napster, and his new project is curing cancer. >> what possessed you? >> maybe it goes back to being a hacker. >> his plan of attack -- a revolutionary therapy that's saving lives like hers. >> i found out i was cancer-free. >> reborn? >> yes, reborn. i think this billionaire is on to something. but first, richard engel with an nbc news exclusive. >> i let my family down. i've let my nation down. >> why should i believe you? >> he's the young american who went from the ivy league to isis. >> he asked to help isis bring down planes. >> why did he join? and why did he return? >> they just got more brutal and brutal. >> you saw heads on a stick? >> yeah. >> tonight, a dark journey inside isis. >> you can see madness in their

eyes. >> that story right now on assignment. >> good evening and welcome to "on assignment," i'm lester holt. tonight we take you into the very heart of the terrorist world and for the first time, an american who joined isis in syria has returned to reveal the inner workings of the terrorist group. he told his story exclusively to richard engel. >> for the past 19 months, the u.s. government has been hiding a valuable intelligence asset somewhere in new york. this week, they revealed him but only to us. we've been asked to call him only mo. and when fbi agents brought him out, he didn't look like a dangerous criminal, but make no mistake, he's pled guilty to two terrorism charges. in 2014, he spent five months in syria, training with isis. >> i've let my family down. i've let my nation down, and

i've let god down. and i have a lot to make up for. >> so you, in this interview and other places, apologizing? >> absolutely. >> why should i believe you? that you really regretted it? one could say now you're facing a difficult situation and you have to say, oh, it was a big mistake? >> well, i took my steps on my own. going in. i also took a lot of steps on my own getting out. and i'm helping in every sense that i can, to help rid the world of the evil that i saw. >> mo is awaiting sentencing and hopes that cooperating with the government will buy him some leniency. a naturalized citizen, he came here from bangladesh when he was a baby, and grew up in new york city. >> did you grow up in an religiously extreme environment? >> no, not at all. >> what was it like to be a kid

in your house? >> i don't imagine anything different from any other new yorker. at least a muslim new yorker, because there's some religion involved, yeah, sure, but i grew up playing basketball, going to school. >> mo's high school paper, published an essay he wrote, praising super heroes, including albert einstein, winston churchill, and mr. burk, his english teacher. he went to community college, made the dean's list, and then caught the eye of a columbia university recruiter. >> so there you are, columbia university, one of the top schools in the country, very hard to get in. >> yeah, i was excited. >> until a teacher in a class about islam played a provocative and controversial film called "submission." >> it's a video about a woman in a transparent burk ha. she had koranic writing painted on her, and it was one of the most offensive things. it made me feel alienated. it's an emotional thing, it

still bothered me. >> do you think this video was a turning point for me? >> i think it's catalytic, yeah. i decided i want to be religious, i want to observe again. so i became observant. >> mo left columbia and for a while drove a taxi through the streets of new york city. he was repelled by what he saw as temptations all around him. but he didn't take his questions to the local imam at the mosque. >> where do you look? >> my research was mostly independent. what i thought was independent. online. >> according to a former fbi agent who has tracked islamic radicals, social media has been isis's main method for recruiting americans. >> first of all, they have the communication with them on social media, then they go to apps where it allows them to do peer-to-peer communication. >> influenced by what he saw online, mo began dreaming of going to syria, where he

believed a pure islamic state was rising. >> is it possible that in the spring of 2014 that someone wouldn't have known what isis was all about, how brutal the group was? >> if you look back in the united states, for example, most of the experts that you are talking to, they'll say, isis, they only care about establishing a caliphate. they're not like al qaeda. they're not looking to expand terrorism outside the caliphate. >> mo said he wasn't sure he was ready to leave the u.s. behind until one day in 2014, the fbi came knocking. >> why did the fbi come to visit you? >> they were wondering about my activity online. >> so they were following your social media? >> yeah. >> they thought it was suspicious? >> they thought it was suspicious. they asked about -- if i had any inclination to go. i was mostly honest. i did lie a little. i was kind of like, i'm interested in going, i'm interested in syria. >> two days later, mo pretended to go to work, but headed

instead to the airport. >> this was a spur of the moment decision? >> it happened very fast. i bought the ticket and the night before, i packed my bags, left a letter to my parents and -- >> what did you say? >> i was planning to not come back, and it was a farewell. >> he was able to board a flight to istanbul and make his way to or fa, a turkish town that has served as a stopover for thousands of foreign fighters on their way into syria. he made contact with isis over twitter and was soon driven with four other recruits to the border where they ran into trouble. >> we were caught by turkish border patrol. they beat the crap out of us. >> punching you, kicking you? >> yeah, with a metal rod, the butts of their aks. >> and then? >> they told us to cross into syria. >> they told you to go into syria? >> yeah. >> they stopped you, arrested you, beat you?

>> yeah. >> and then said just get lost, go into syria? >> yeah. and they're pointing a gun. and i just did what i had to, i just ran. >> mo soon reached a safe house and the first thing he was asked to do as a resident of the islamic state was to fill out a form. >> it was just a guide who took us separately who asked a bunch of background type questions. >> there was one box where they could say special skills. on your form it said studied at columbia university, has plan for taking down aircraft. could be useful. what is that? >> i guess that's how he wrote it. he said, do you want to be a fighter? a fighter, or a fighter? >> and i was just trying to think of an excuse not to be a fighter. >> but you were saying, don't use me as a fighter because i'm a terrorist mastermind? i can be useful in other ways? >> it's very myopic and

short-sighted, but it seemed to me that it would save my skin. >> two weeks after the initial processing, mo was sent to an islamic training camp like this one, where he claims he was shocked by what the isis instructors were saying. >> what kinds of things were they telling you? >> that perspectives on, for instance, slave girls, it was something that they perpetrated and thought of as actual slavery and enslavement of just regular civilians and people. >> he says he was appalled, but things were about to get much worse. he headed for military training next. >> a weapons class, a tactical class, and there would be, like a physical training class. >> what kind of weapons did you train on? >> they gave you an ak, and they had you memorize it and everyone got three bullets a person. >> so they didn't want you to use too much ammunition? >> they were low on ammunition,

i guess. >> did they show you how to make bombs? >> no, they explained how to use it when someone brings it. >> the isis videos that everybody has seen, are so brutal. >> all those videos came out a couple months after me being there. they got more brutal right in front of me. it's like a blood thirst, i guess. people had a readiness for violence. >> the group was attracting violent people? >> absolutely. that's the bulk of the people that were going there. >> did you see evidence of all the gore that we see in the isis propaganda? >> towards the end, as things were getting more and more serious, i did see severed heads placed on spiked polls. >> you saw heads on a stake? >> yeah. >> what did you think? >> i just blocked it out. i tried to ignore it. >> you thought this was going to be an islamic utopia, you said?

>> yeah. >> what was it like when you got there? >> distopia. >> distopia? >> yeah, just all sorts of crazy. you could see madness in their eyes. >> you've been presenting yourself very much as a victim, someone who fell for their propaganda? but you went and joined a group that is known the world over for its savagery and brutality. >> i'm not saying i'm a victim. i know, i've seen the victims there. i don't support terrorism. i support islam. i like the idea of islam. >> but lots of people like islam and want to follow the tenets of their religion who don't join an international terrorist group. >> see, that's the trap. it's a very, very thin line. >> he says he was seduced by isis, that he was effectively a victim, do you buy that? >> i don't buy it. this is baloney, to be honest with you. there's an individual who went, joined isis, and when he applied

to join the organization on the form, he asked to help isis bring down planes. this cannot be -- this is a person who went to join isis with terrorist intentions on his mind. >> did you do any fighting? >> no. thank god, no. >> when did you decide that you were going to leave? >> one morning, everyone was busy. they left my alone for an hour. and so i took that chance and i walked out. >> he found a sympathetic syrian who promised to help him sneak back across the border. >> i remember sitting in an internet cafe waiting for the guy to pick me up, and i was sitting there for over 12 hours. i was trying to e-mail my parents -- >> saying i'm trying to come home, i made a terrible mistake, but i might not survive. >> i might be caught and i might be killed.

i was shaking in my hands. that's what terrorism is, that's what evil is. >> as soon as he got to the turkish side, mo headed to the nearest u.s. consulate. american agents escorted him all the way back to the states where he was promptly arrested by the fbi. he's been in jail ever since and faces up to 25 years in prison. the government allowed him to speak to us, hoping his story will deter other young americans from falling for isis's pitch. >> i think i have a real message and that's the most important thing. the message is that islamic state is not bringing islam to the world. and people need to know that. and i will say that until the day i die. >> how genuine the promise from an american who previously pledged his life to isis really is, will be for a federal judge to decide. coming up -- love your pet? how about a spare set? >> when you see the dogs, do you think clones? or do you think puppies? >> cloning your dog. >> it's so unbelievable and incredible.

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jurassic park, that was hollywood's version of cloning. but clones are more than just science fiction. they are real, and there's one place where you can buy a pet clone of your very own. harry smith traveled to asia. >> we're in south korea, a country proud of its technology-based economy. but we didn't come to seoul to look at the latest electronic gadgetry. no, we're here to see puppies. if you have a dog in your home you love more than some family members, you can get it cloned here. yes, an exact genetic duplicate. if you think that's impressive, you'll want to hear what they want to clone next. meet laura and richard. they've traveled 5,000 miles from their home in the north of england, to korea, to see two little boxer pups. these pups are clones of laura's

dog dillon. and this is the only place in the world where you can get your pet dog cloned. >> do they look like dillon? >> they look just like him. >> richard's in construction. laura helps with the business and walks dogs. richard says laura is dog mad. dog mad in a good way. >> when you see the dogs, when you see the puppies, do you think clones? or do you think puppies? >> puppies, i think. it's too hard to comprehend that i took these samples from my dog after he died, and these two come from that. it's so unbelievable and incredible. >> laura's 8-year-old dog dillon died suddenly, leaving her an emotional wreck. >> would it be too much to say he was your best friend? >> yeah, he was my total best friend, yeah. i spent more time with dillon in those eight years than i did with anyone else. >> and in her grief, she remembered seeing a story on television about dog cloning. >> and i remember thinking, i'd love to do that with dillon, but

you could never warrant spending all that money, like where would you get all the money from? then the day after he died, richard said to me, what about this cloning thing, it's 65,000 pounds. which is $100,000. >> you heard right, the sticker price is $100,000. laura was there when her puppies were born. so far the lab has cloned 180 dogs for customers around the world. including these two terriers for billionaires. >> we have a pomeranian for a client in france. and one in the united states. >> clones? >> yes, all clones. >> this is for clients in china. >> six of them altogether? >> yes. >> all clones? >> yes, all clones. >> yuft want to make sure. >> here we have another clone for a client in india.

>> there you go. looks like a happy dog. >> yeah, yeah. >> a happy clone. >> the man behind all this dog cloning and dr. wong wu sok. he cloned the first dog in 2005, the invention of the year. just the year before, he created a worldwide sensation when he claimed to have cloned a human embryo, a dramatic scientific first. >> do you trust this guy? >> i can't trust him, no. >> dr. beth shapiro is an evolutionary biologist and mcarthur grant awardee. dr. grant claimed to have cloned a human embryo. >> right, he did. >> and the whole world said, oh, my gosh, look what happened. >> right. >> but what happened to the science? >> he hadn't cloned a human embryo. he'd done some things that were not favorably looked upon by the scientific and global community.

>> investigators found that wong's data on human cloning had been fabricated and female lab workers were pressured into donating their eggs. he lost his job and lost face. wong vowed he would spend the rest of his life repenting. >> anyone who has lied very publicly and been found guilty of that, i think it's gonna be very hard for the scientific community to get behind him. >> but dr. wong has come roaring back, building the biotech research foundation into an international cloning mega business. and while we were welcomed at his lab, dr. wong turned down our request for an interview. offering instead a proxy, researcher david kim. >> i think people have an idea that bizarre cloned animals are coming out of these dogs and they have two heads and three legs, that this is some frankenstein factory. >> cloning itself has been sort of warped because of the science

fiction movies and all that. but it's relatively very basic. >> we watched dr. wong perform the procedures necessary to clone a dog. wong removes eggs from a donor dog's ovaries, then he needs a dna sample from a living or recently deceased animal. >> so he needs that? >> yes. >> cloning a dog or a horse or a pig, the dna is lit up with dye, then sucked out of the egg. then the dna from the animal you want to clone replaces it. shoot in a little electricity and presto, soon you have an embryo forming. not exactly biology 101. for laura and richard, it worked twice. >> i would literally could not believe it, could we? >> she was screaming. there's two! i'm thinking, oh, no. >> oh, no, do we have to pay?

>> the lab offered the second pup as a gift. but there was a different kind of cost to producing a healthy clone. numerous surgical procedures on otherwise healthy dogs, from the egg donor to the surrogates, who carry the clone pups to term. >> there's a lot of medical procedures that have to take place in order for you to get your successful clone. >> yeah. >> is that all worth it? >> i mean, that's the part that i do feel worst about, knowing that these dogs are having an unnecessary operation, because i'm such a dog lover. >> laura has spent a lot of time at the lab and are convinced the dogs here are treated humanely. >> here's the donor of the eggs. >> while dr. shapiro doesn't object to some cloning for science, she's opposed to cloning pets. >> i think it's predatory, convincing someone that if they give you $100,000, you can give them an identical copy of a beloved pet, it's not fair. >> so i've got the genetic

replica, looks like fido, right? barks like fido. >> there will be many behaviors, there will be physical traits, there will be other aspects of this dog that will be identical to the dog that once lived, but it's not the same dog. identical twins are clones of each other, but they're different people. >> some people see this program as playing on the emotions of people like you who are grieving so desperately for the animal they lost. >> yeah. >> do you feel exploited at all in this process? >> no, not in any way whatsoever. i see it probably as it's a way to deal with my grief. and just to make me feel like there's still a part of him somewhere in this world, to feel like i've not fully lost him. >> but dr. wong is doing a lot more than cloning warm, fuzzy puppies. half a world away in rural western pennsylvania, another of

dr. wong's clones is learning a bit more than how to sit, fetch, and roll over. >> good boy. >> he's being taught how to identify different types of explosives. >> that's black powder. specter here is going to be an explosives dog. >> specter is the clone of an animal of rare courage and exceptional ability. a once in a lifetime, u.s. special forces dog. >> can you tell me the dog's name or where the dog is working right now? >> the dog's name is branko and he's assigned to a unit that i can't tell you who he's with. >> classified? >> classified, yes. >> john has 30 years experience working with police and military dogs. a former cop, he now runs shallow creek kennels. >> who's next? >> training dogs and their handlers for law enforcement. >> somebody calls you up one day and says, hey, do you want to work with a clone? what was your response? >> i kind of laughed at first. i didn't think it would work. i didn't think there would be any difference between a normal

puppy compared to a cloned puppy. and we were proven wrong. >> specter is the third clone of that u.s. special forces dog. the first two are already working for the atf s.w.a.t. team. >> just for the record, this is a good idea, right? >> this is a ghd idea. >> at five months old, specter's bite is already much worse than his bark. >> oh, man. those are some serious jaws. >> so the genes are the same, the dog looks the same. is there anything else you're sensing about this clone? >> they seem to have previous life experience. they seem to be more mature and more focused than a puppy should be. >> does it freak you out a little bit? >> yes, absolutely. it's like a science experiment. yes. >> and if cloning pets and combat dogs isn't impressive enough, you'll want to see what dr. wong wants to clone next. ♪

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>> your hour's top stories, the director of the cincinnati zoo said he'd make the same decision to zoot and kill a gorilla after a 3-year-old boy fell into his enclosure on saturday. the boy was being hurt as he was being dragged by the animal. meanwhile, an online petition is calling for the boys' parents to be held accountable in the gorilla's death. but the zoo doesn't plan to pressing charges. now back to date line on assignment. >> good boy. >> one more thing before we leave south korea. dr. wong woo suck, the master of dog cloning is expanding his enterpris enterprises.

he's involved in a multimillion dollar deal to clone cattle to feed beef-hungry china and working to modify pigs for human organ transplants. but if you've seen "jurassic park" get this. he has been to the arctic to recover remains of extinct species bike the woolly mammoth, which last walked the earth more than 3,000 years ago. >> he apparently says he plans to clone one using, presumably the same process that he would use to clone a dog. is that possible? >> it is not possible. >> why not. >> in order to clone something using this process one needs not only a very well preserved cell but a cell that is actually still alive and in anything that is dead like a mammoth has been dead, the most recent population of mammoths lived in rangel island about 3,000 years ago, that is way too much time to have passed for any cell to still be alive. >> shapiro has done her own research in the arctic. hunting for mammoth remains.

she is an expert in ancient dna. >> what species would you like to bring back if you could? >> and the author of "how to clone a mammoth." >> why do you think he's trying to clone a mammoth? >> his career is checkered with things that he is doing to create attention. it would be an amazing feat. an impossible feat and he would be famous. >> the fact is a number of labs are trying to bring back extinct species. using different techniques. wong's group says it is hopeful it will unearth viable dna to clone a mammoth. and surely someone somewhere is trying to clone a human. >> if i get really good at cloning dogs, might i get good at or better at trying to clone a human embryo? >> humans are a species that, for better or for worse -- probably i say for better -- seem to be very hard to figure out how to do this for.

that's not to say that it's impossible. >> while the world waits for that, or for dr. wong's cloned mammoth, laura and richard will have to wait for their dogs to clear quarantine before they can bring them home. >> i'm so excited to get home home. >> $100,000, does it feel like it's money well spent? >> at the end of the day, it's only money. we've got the dogs. it's money well spent. >> you're beautiful. >> laura is also adopting the two surrogates who gave birth to her cloned pups. she's dog mad, remember? >> show us how you play. coming up -- >> you're looking for vulnerabilities, you're looking for broken things in order to go and fix them. >> he's the tech world pioneer on cancer's next frontier. >> ten days into the new year, i found out i was cancer-free. >> can this silicon valley visionary help find a cure? 2 weeks guaranteed.

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you may not know the name sean parker, but you sure know what he's been a part of. facebook, napster, spotify. now he's bringing his silicon valley smarts to something even bolder -- curing cancer. call it the ultimate computer hack. keith morrison reports from california. >> right here, beautiful. >> it's a chilly spring evening in bel air, california. too chilly for this sort of thing, quite frankly. yet this flashy ritual is perhaps the most ordinary thing about the remarkable doings just

outside his back door. >> i don't even feel like i'm in my backyard. it's the weirdest feeling. >> his name is sean parker and this is indeed his backyard, in which he's built a giant glass atrium for his dinner guests who will be entertained by the likes of lady gaga, all to announce -- >> a manhattan project for curing cancer with the immune system. >> billionaires, think they can do anything. >> what in heaven's name possessed you to think that you could wade into a field where the world's great medical minds have been working so hard for so long and make a big difference? >> you're talking to somebody as an entrepreneur has waded into a lot of fields and somehow managed to have a really big difference. >> which may sound like the ultimate in hubris, except this

guy may be on to something. >> i'm sean parker. >> this is how most people were introduced to sean parker, played by justin timberlake in "the social network." >> it is the true digitalization of real life. >> the thing that hurts the most is someone's only impression of me comes from having watched that film and they have preconceived notions about who i am, all of which are completely wrong. >> what's right? well, he was the first president of facebook and he has been disruptive. in high school, he got into trouble with the fbi for illegal hacking. at 19, he and an internet buddy created napster, the music sharing service that up-ended the recording industry. >> you know, we were kind of troubled kids who weren't totally happy with the life we were living, and we were incredibly curious. >> and now he's rich. facebook made him a billionaire. then he helped unleash spotify,

and at 36, he's husband of alexandra, father of two, and the proud owner of one of l.a.'s most expensive and iconic mid century mansions. >> the architecture is incredibly modern. >> but curious kid? yes, that he most certainly still is. so when his good friend, the hollywood producer laura ziskin was fighting cancer, he got curious about a cutting edge treatment called immuneo therapy. >> he participated in some clinical trials around immuneo therapy, which had it been maybe two years later, perhaps -- >> maybe. >> perhaps it would have worked. >> but it didn't. even though immuneo therapy seemed so promising. >> you know, losing laura changed me. i went from being someone for whom this was an abstract problem, to someone who was a

militant activist. >> immuneo therapy, harnesses the body's immune system and equips it to attack and kill cancer cells. parker's tech background persuaded him that the treatment should work. >> that theory had an intrinsig appeal to me. you start to learn about things like killer t cells. they are incredibly sophistic e sophisticated killing machines, they're like little computers. >> could they are harnessed to fight cancer? parker sought out leading doctors in hospitals working with immuneo therapy, heard about people like stacy pelts, who for years had been kept alive only by intense chemotherapy. >> i was falling apart, i couldn't function, couldn't get out of bed. >> you best you were going to get was prolonging it? >> yes and it was literally killing me perform. >> then she was offered in a trial of immuneo therapy drugs. and now -- do you feel normal? >> i feel normal. if you didn't tell me i had

cancer, i wouldn't know it. >> you can live with that? >> i can absolutely live with that. that's the plan, to live with it. >> mary elizabeth williams wasn't going to liver at all. her melanoma was a death sentence, stage 4, seven months to live. >> it's the end of summer and your kids are starting school. there's a strong likelihood you will not be there through the end of the school year. >> and those months won't be fun? >> it's going to get worse, it's gonna get bad. >> what are the feelings that go with that? >> i felt like a failure, i felt ashamed, i felt really scared. >> then in 2011 she participated in a trial. though she began to feel better almost right away, the scans that would tell her if the treatment actually worked were months away. >> i took my daughters to macy's and we saw santa claus.

and my kids told santa something in secret that they didn't want to tell me what it was. we celebrated new year's and i was really aware that that year could be the book end of my life. and then ten days into the new year, i found out i was cancer-free. [ laughter ] yeah. >> reborn? >> yes, reborn. yes. >> just three months into treatment, her doctor is the preeminent immunologist jet wal chuck. >> good work, man. >> immunotherapy for melanoma has been transformative. also for bladder cancer, some types of lymphoma, for kidney cancer and non-small cell lung cancer which is the number one cause of cancer death in north america. >> so sean parker's questions, if immunotherapy is so

promising, why aren't there more new treatments, why aren't more people getting them? he plowed through dense medical journals, badgered the top medical experts for information. >> it goes back to being a hacker. you're looking for vulnerabilities, for broken things, in order to go and fix them. >> what's broken? >> immunotherapy research has been gummed, said parker, slowed down, by a bureaucratic funding system. >> scientists struggle to keep their labs going, and every time they applied for grants, they were rejected, because the funding tends to go to the same people. >> he calculated that less than 4% of cancer research grants have been going toward immuneo therapy. top doctors like wal chuck must devote about a third of their time to applications and competition for the grants to pay for research. >> there really was no other way short of me winning the new york state lotto, right, and funding

myself. >> but the process can take years and thus delay new treatments for patients. >> what do you think of that? >> well, it's incredibly frustrating. patients don't want to wait a generation for governments and other large institutional funders to provide answers. >> it makes more sense. >> the way parker saw it, the cancer-curing business was right for his brand of disruption. >> i started with a really simple question. how are we spending $300 billion on research and development with such little improvement over the last 20 years, in the life expectancy of patients. >> one of the roadblocks? established centers have been reluctant to share rights to new therapy. which is, says parker, just about the same problem he encountered when he helped get spotify up and running. >> how is organizing cancer research like organizing spotify? >> we had to work with four major record labels and get the

rights to the content and launch the service in the u.s. so in his meetings, parker proposed a similar solution. >> what >> imagine, a meeting with some of the best minds of medicine and some guy from silicon valley is trying to persuade them to fall in with him. >> isn't that like herding cats, trying to get them to work together? >> the magic was so clear to everyone, the trouble with it was that nobody had ever done it before. >> but he did it. his new parker institute for cancer immunotherapy will market any drugs and split part of the profit to the institution for more research and put down $250 million of his own money stripping away the need for the

endless fundraising. the result, a history-making alliance with six of the leading cancer centers including jed's problem. parker calls them his immunotherapy dream team. is this something that really has the capability of ramping up the speed with which you folks can address cancers and fix them? >> it already has. because of the power of six, you know, we really have the ability to engage multiples at a high level and do the science with them. >> does the billionaire know what he's doing? dr. lewis lanier gives him high mark. >> sean is a quick studier. he really loves the stuff. his whole heart is in it. >> which brings us back to the big kick off party parker threw last month in his backyard. it was not your average gala, part science lesson led by tom hanks.

>> stay together and immune check point inhibitor. part encouragement for cancer survivors from performers like lady gaga and a hollywood worthy tribute to the scientists and the patients like mary elizabeth williams parker hopes to benefit. >> i want you to know what happens after your doctor tells you you used to have a life-threatening cancer. >> so maybe this billionaire is on to something. >> i think this billionaire is on to something. >> other people seem to think so, too. vice president biden whose leading the government's new cancer initiative recently met with parker, so has former president carter whose had remarkable success with his i'm immunotherapy treatment. so maybe the one-time internet

bad boy found his life's work. >> the structural changes that need to happen won't happen overnight. they will play out over a generation. >> and you'll hang in there. >> as long as people are dying of cancer, yeah, i'll hang with it. coming up. >> hi, i'm in the middle of an interview. >> how high-tech kids, turns out not all technology is their type. >> old fashion telephone. you can use it for calling people. you have to dial the name of the person and call them? >> ut oh, we're going retro next on the kid's table. nah. what else? what if we hire more sales reps? ♪ nah. what else? what if we digitize the whole supply chain?

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google headed tech world, kids can't wait to get their hands on them. watch what happens when technology goes old school at the kids' table. ♪ >> it's an old-fashioned telephone. >> it helps you type messages to other people. so you use it for calling people? >> it's like a board on your iphone. >> i think you have to dial the name of the person then you call them? >> it's a typewriter.

>> a typewriter. >> my grandpa has one, so i know what this is. ♪ >> i think it's a poster. >> a cd player. >> these are disk holders. >> oh. >> they used to have these huge disks. >> if you put this in, it would play a song. >> they are so humongous. >> the disks were really big. ♪ >> i think it's radio. >> i think it's a sound machine or something. >> don't think so. >> i know what this is. this is a record player. >> i think. >> yeah, a radio. i think. >> and they are also using the phase two because we didn't have -- either have the computer, which plays music.

♪ >> it's an olden day telephone. >> you dial the numbers. i don't know how to do that. >> how do you dial this thing? >> and then go like click. then it goes five. click. >> this is hard. >> four. >> click. >> and then just do like this. >> hi, i'm in the middle of an interview. well, just wait until they try to find their favorite song on an eight track. remember that? that's going to do it for us tonight "on assignment." we'll see you next sunday on 7:00, 6:00 central. here's what we're working on for next week. we're just off the brand-new bay bridge, an architect marvel. connecting san francisco with oakland. it came billions under budget and costs thousands of american jobs. how did that happen?

buckle your seat belts, we're on a voyage to find out. >> that's next week "on assignment." i'll see you at 10:00, 9:00 central for an all-new "dateline." i'm lester holt, thanks for joining us. she was born in illinois. >> they were a middle class fami family. >> her mother taught her to fight back. >> you go back out there. >> her father was a tough-minded republican. >> old school task master, very conservative. >> he recognized this girl and the woman she will become. >> we came of age of the civil rights movement, the vietnam war, the women's movement. why we've gone down that god forsaken place, i love him and want to try it. >> she was the campaign manager. she was the boss. >> i could have stayed home and baked cookies and teas. >> she was carving a role as first lady. >> women's rights are human rights once and for all. >> it takes a village to raise a