Category Archives: Cancer Research

Cancer Research, Doctors

Eric Lefkofksy –Using Big Data to Solve the Cancer Puzzle

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1.7 million Americans will have been diagnosed with cancer in 2017. They will be treated in a few thousand treatment facilities. The doctors treating them will be scribbling notes about the progress of each patient. And in spite of the already vast amount of literature available on the subject, some treatments will work in some patients and others won’t, in other patients. The reason why this happens remains hidden in those hastily scribbled notes: a vast but disorganized gold mine which is hard to mine currently. This is where Eric Lefkofksy steps in. The Chicago-based startup “Tempus”, which he co-founded, has the required tools to create this vast database, capable of taking in the data, processing, and providing the required advice about the treatment for a specific patient to a doctor: it is an “end-to-end” solution, which Eric now runs full time.

Eric Lefkofksy, 49, is a successful entrepreneur- billionaire- his net worth, as of 02/15/2018 was $ 2.1 billion. He also co founded the venture capital firm Lightbank, through which they have invested in over a hundred start-ups, such as the ecommerce company Beachmint. The two have also created another data science company Uptake, which helps client companies improve their operations and safety.

Eric Lefkofksy grew up near Detroit and attended the University of Michigan for his undergraduate and law degrees.

Eric is also active socially, being a trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago , Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, and The Museum of Science and Industry and World Business Chicago. His Lefkofsky Family Foundation supports education, human rights, art, and medicine. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business., and has authored the book “Accelerated Disruption: Understanding the True Speed of Innovation”.

Starting with his creation of tempus, and going all the way to his interest in making Glencoe- his Chicago suburb- a safe and better place, Eric Lefkofksy shows all the signs of being a caring, engaged citizen.

For details: www.crunchbase.com/person/eric-lefkofsky

Cancer Research, Dr. David Samadi

Dr. David Samadi Writes About Prominent Politicians Who Have Had Prostate Cancer

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In a Huffpost article world-renowned urologist Dr. David Samadi contributed an article about prostate cancer. He started out by writing about Mitt Romney recently revealing he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He said that he had surgery in California UC Irvine Hospital. It’s expected that he revealed this information because he will be running for the open United States Senate seat in his home state of Utah.

Prostate cancer affects a lot of men. There were a bit over 160,000 men who were diagnosed to have this type of cancer in 2017. It mostly affects older men (past age 65) and relatively few men under the age of 40. Dr. David Samadi writes that other well-known politicians have also been diagnosed with this. One of these men is former Secretary of State Colin Powell who had surgery for this disease in 2003. John Kerry, a former U.S. Senator and Democratic candidate for President, was treated for prostate cancer in 2002.

There are two ways to treat prostate cancer, he says. You can either have surgery or be treated with radiation. While there are pros and cons to both methods, Dr. David Samadi says that if the cancer is still localized he thinks that surgery is the way to go. The reason for this is that someone who receives radiation as their treatment is twice as likely to die from cancer than those who elect for surgery. He also says that when choosing the urologist that will perform the surgery you definitely need to find out how many times they’ve performed prostate surgery and what their success rate is.

Dr. David Samadi earned his MD in oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2002. It was while attending that school that he became a member of the American Urologist Association Society of Urologic Oncology. His first stop in his professional career was at Columbia Presbyterian in New York City. He was the director of laparoscopic surgery there for almost five years. He then joined Mount Sinai Medical Center as their chief of robotic surgery. Later on he was also given the role of vice chair of urology at this hospital.

In June 2013, he joined Lenox Hill Hospital. He is the chairman of urology and the chief of robotic surgery. He has now performed almost 7000 prostate surgeries while being assisted by robotics. He has built a core surgical team, as well, to assist him.

To know more visit the channel www.youtube.com/user/RoboticOncology

Cancer Research

Clay Siegall has Big Plans for the Future of Seattle Genetics

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Clay Siegall is the founder of the Seattle Genetics where he holds the position of the CEO. The company specializes in the formulation and development of drugs for diseases that have seen little to almost no improvement in the mortality rates such as cancer. The company also develops biotech technology that they sell to its clients.

 

Clay Siegall in an interview said that he was always interested in medicine, but when one of his family members had cancer, he saw first-hand the problems that chemotherapies bring with itself. It was at that particular time that he got interested in cancer treatment. While he was working with an organization after completing his studies, he was disheartened that even after working hard, all the patents are under the name of the organization. One of his patents earned $80 million in a year, and he didn’t receive any money from it. It was then when he decided to start something of his own, and he set up Seattle Genetics with other researchers.

 

Clay Siegall was asked how his company made money and he answered it promptly. He said that the company sells its proprietary drugs. They also earn money by selling licensing for their processes and technologies that they develop. He also believes that since the FDA takes a lot of time to approve drugs, it is important for them to find revenue sources from other places and they are doing great in this regard. He also talked about the time during 1999 and 2000 when the company’s operating capital was decreasing. But, the company managed to stay afloat and is one of the successful biotech company in the United States.

 

Clay Siegall wants to take the company to new heights and already have a big plan set for it. The company has many drug development projects in the pipeline and are looking to become an authority in the drug development industry. He also aims to develop newer treatments for cancer as the chemotherapies being used today do not provide much value to the patients. He wants to replace the therapies by effective cancer drugs.