An unlikely partnership could make more cancer patients eligible for clinical trials—and improve lives. The key is more accurately assessing patient frailty. Meredith Salisbury explains. More
Tag Index / Showing 1 - 17 of 17 results for “cancer”
Experts Note ‘Tremendous Progress’ on Cancer
Significant progress has been made in the fight against cancer in recent years, but funding, clinical trial access, and navigating increasingly complex data sets are among the latest challenges. "Now is an exceptional time in cancer research,” says the director of the National Cancer Institute, “the tremendous progress we have made … is amazing.” More
Asia’s Cancer Crisis Inspires Lab Innovation
The growing number of cancer patients in Asia is spurring innovative research and development — and some promising diagnostic developments. More
Seemingly Miraculous New Cancer Gene Therapy Brings Major Risks
A new FDA-approved cancer gene therapy called CAR T recently showed astonishing effectiveness against leukemia in seriously ill patients. Despite their poor prognosis, 83 percent responded to the treatment, and the cancer medical establishment was blown away. But even as we celebrate a genuine breakthrough, consider the very serious and long-lasting side effects. More
How Genomics Can Improve Cancer Care (at Techonomy Health)
Cancer kills millions every year. Advances in genomics and related technologies hold enormous potential for prevention and treatment, but researchers need more data. A Techonomy Health session tackled challenges in our current system, and the case for allowing researchers access to our genomes. More
Bio & Life Sciences Healthcare
Could Bats Reveal the Fountain of Youth?
Unlike other tiny mammals, bats and mole-rats live especially long lives. Now scientists are starting to understand why. At a time when interest in longevity is massive and growing, their answers might point the way toward useful knowledge about how we ourselves could last a bit longer. More
Bio & Life Sciences Government Healthcare
Why Obama Is Right about Cancer: Genomics
President Obama’s optimistic language about finally nearing a cure for cancer in the State of the Union comes as creative approaches are showing more promise than ever. Two major announcements highlight important new opportunities to diagnose and treat cancer—and both are only possible because of advances in genomics. More
Bio & Life Sciences Healthcare
CellMax Life Is Changing the Rules for Cancer Screening
An unheralded Silicon Valley biotechnology startup is fundamentally changing the rules of cancer screening. CellMax Life, headquartered in both Mountain View and Taipei, is deploying a technology that can detect cancer cells at their earliest stages. It has the potential to decisively change the economics of cancer screening and impacting cancer outcomes worldwide. More
5 Genomic Advances To Be Thankful For
With Thanksgiving approaching, Techonomy's resident champion of genomics details some things she's thankful for this year: Better Cancer Testing; Increased Data-Sharing Efforts; Scientists Who Push Boundaries (and Police Themselves Too); Living Foundries; and the FDA's Approval of the First DTC Genetic Test. She looks forward to more advances that will help regular consumers as programs like the federal Precision Medicine Initiative kick off. More
Will Even a Cholesterol Test Help Identify Cancer?
Early detection is one of the most effective ways to beat cancer. That’s why some recent studies, in which scientists detected it in people long before symptoms began, have cancer researchers so excited. The coolest part? These scientists weren’t even looking for signs of cancer. DNA-based detection tools have gotten sensitive enough that it now appears possible to identify precancerous cells. This ability to spot precancerous cells could become pivotal in oncology. It could also be problematic. More
Bio & Life Sciences Healthcare
Our Era of Preventive Genetic Screening: Brought to You in Part by Mary-Claire King
Two decades ago, Mary-Claire King made one of the most important contributions to modern healthcare when she discovered the first gene linked to breast cancer. Now, she’s trying to one-up herself. King, a genetics pioneer who won a major scientific award this week from the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, has issued a call to change how we think about gene testing in an approach she believes will prevent cancer, not just catch it early. (And if you’ve never met King, the fact that she’s using her award to shed light on a serious public health need rather than to celebrate her own career tells you a little something about her character.) More
B-School Buddies Want to Battle Cancer with Big Data
Wharton graduates Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg are only 28, but they already know enough about building a business to warrant a profile in Fortune Magazine. They sold an advertising and exchange bidding startup to Google for $80 million four years ago. And Google Ventures has backed their current venture, the oncology platform Flatiron Health, with $100 million. More
Individualized Cancer Treatment Coming—But Only If Underdogs Prevail
Decades ago, “personalized medicine” meant “don’t give penicillin to the person who is fatally allergic to it.” Today, the phrase is shorthand for the ambitious but achievable concept of targeting medications to a specific group of people, based on genetic information, disease progression, biomarkers, and other factors. Still, there’s a small but growing force in the biomedical community that takes the notion of “personalized medicine” much further. For them the term is used literally—they aim for treatment options custom-crafted for the unique snowflakes that we are. More
Using Software to Program the Building Blocks of Life
“What’s beautiful about software is that it makes complex jobs easy,” opines Andrew Hessel, a distinguished researcher at Autodesk, the software company best known for the design software, AutoCAD. What’s really beautiful about what Hessel and others at Autodesk are working on is what they’re building new design tools for—life itself. Hessel, who spoke at Techonomy’s November conferences in 2011 and 2013, sees the work Autodesk is involved in as a way to create greater access to the burgeoning field of synthetic biology and, along the way, turbocharge fields like energy and food production, manufacturing, and hopefully developing personalized, genetic-level tools for fighting, maybe even curing, things like cancer. More
A Cancer Genomics Arms Race Is Underway
Supercomputers and DNA sequencing instruments are the weapons of choice in an "arms race within the war on cancer." Medical centers in New York City alone are reportedly spending more than $1 billion on building, equipping, and staffing new genomic research centers. More
Technology to Unlock Cancer Data for Patients’ Sake
"If you think about the scientific revolutions that have occurred in history, they've been driven by one thing--the availability of data. From Copernicus to quantum mechanics, it's data that drives innovation." So says computational biologist John Quackenbush in an interview in the May edition of Fast Company. And despite all the talk about massive amounts of genomic data being churned out by next-generation sequencing instruments, much of it is not actually available, at least not in the way Quackenbush and a lot of cancer patients want it to be. More
How to Look at Your Genome: Close-Up or Wide-Angle?
There’s growing debate in the biomedical community about the most valuable view of the human genome: a wide panoramic snapshot showing the whole thing, or a zoomed-in image of just where the action is. This is not just an academic discussion: the outcome will have significant implications in how patients are treated for a range of medical conditions. More
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