Cancer Commons provides expert, personalized guidance to patients and caregivers around the world through our ASK Cancer Commons service. Recently, we plotted the distribution of our ASK users on a world map to see where they live. We found that about 2,000 people in more than 44 countries have sought help from Cancer Commons. “Cancer Commons is catering to an international audience and therefore… Read more »
A new article from BioQuick News discusses Cancer Commons founder Marty Tenenbaum’s presentation at last week’s Personalized Medicine World Conference: In the PMWC 2017 discussion, Dr. Tenenbaum focused on the question: When faced with certain death, is it acceptable to accept less than 100% proven safety and efficacy? Patients with glioblastoma and certain other cancers with dire prognoses do not have the time to… Read more »
Image credit: Caroline Davis2010In a recent Xconomy article on cancer DNA testing, Cancer Commons medical director Kevin Knopf shares his perspective: “To help all patients we think an open-source database has the most utility,” says Knopf. Instead of current tests that list a patient’s mutations and potential drugs to use, a report should rank therapies the way online travel sites rank best options. Read the full article… Read more »
Last week, Cancer Commons founder Marty Tenenbaum spoke at the Precision Medicine World Conference (PMWC) in Durham, NC. He presented a proposal to significantly accelerate patient access to promising investigational drugs, using a new pathway to approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The proposed Conditional Approval pathway aims to help cancer patients who may have exhausted existing options access new, promising treatments. “It’s… Read more »
Since the beginning of high school, Cancer Commons supporter Sheri Sobrato Brisson has been working with families facing pediatric illness. “As soon as I was 16, I started volunteering in hospitals with kids with cancer, not knowing that I would grow up one day to be one of those patients myself,” she says. At the age of 24, Sheri faced her own diagnosis: a… Read more »
Cancer Commons founder Marty Tenenbaum, Ph.D., will speak at the upcoming Precision Medicine World Conference (PMWC) in Durham, NC, which runs May 24–25. Marty, who founded Cancer Commons after his own battle with melanoma, will discuss the organization’s ongoing efforts to address challenges to knowledge-sharing in precision oncology. Read the synopsis of Marty’s presentation, entitled “Is An Additional Path to FDA Approval Possible?”: This talk will… Read more »
Oncologist and Cancer Commons Medical Director Kevin Knopf, MD, will speak next month at TiEcon 2017, a technology conference in Santa Clara, CA. He’ll join three other experts to discuss the future of personalized medicine. From the program: A new era of personalized medicine has made its way into the world of healthcare. We will discuss novel approaches for designing disease treatment and prevention that… Read more »
Ask MIT Neuroscientist Dr. Nancy Kanwisher what the most fascinating discovery about the human brain is in her eyes; she’ll tell you there’s a part of our brain that is selectively turned on only when we’re thinking about what other people are thinking about us. Though it was Dr. Kanwisher’s student and now colleague who made this discovery, she considers it the “coolest” of… Read more »
Connor (far left) with his family on a backpacking trip through the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National ParkVolunteers are essential members of the Cancer Commons community. We are deeply grateful to those who have generously donated their time to helping us change the way the world treats cancer. This month, we celebrate the contributions of Cancer Commons volunteer Connor Sweetnam, who uses his engineering background to extract insights from our interactions with patients so they can be leveraged to help other… Read more »
Update 3-1-17: A video of this event has now been released. Watch it below. This year’s Precision Medicine World Conference in Mountain View, California, was well-attended by many members of Cancer Commons, who shared in the scientific discoveries that will lead the way to more personalized, accurate, and effective cancer care. Precision medicine is a rapidly evolving field with many breakthroughs in science, technology,… Read more »