Category Archives: Cancer

Big Data, Cancer, Eric Dishman, Healthcare, Intel, Knight Cancer Institute, News & Analysis, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Vendor

Intel partners with OHSU in using cloud, big data to cure cancer

Intel is working with the OHSU to develop a secure, federate cloud service for healthcare practitioners treating cancer

Intel is working with the OHSU to develop a secure, federate cloud service for healthcare practitioners treating cancer

Intel is testing a cloud-based platform as a service in conjunction with the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) that can help diagnose and treat individuals for cancer based on their genetic pre-dispositions.

The organisations want to develop a cloud service that can be used by healthcare practitioners to soak up a range of data including genetic information, data about a patient’s environment and lifestyle to deliver tailored cancer treatment plans quickly to those in need.

“The Collaborative Cancer Cloud is a precision medicine analytics platform that allows institutions to securely share patient genomic, imaging and clinical data for potentially lifesaving discoveries. It will enable large amounts of data from sites all around the world to be analyzed in a distributed way, while preserving the privacy and security of that patient data at each site,” explained Eric Dishman director of proactive health research at Intel.

“The end goal is to empower researchers and doctors to help patients receive a diagnosis based on their genome and potentially arm clinicians with the data needed for a targeted treatment plan. By 2020, we envision this happening in 24 hours — All in One Day. The focus is to help cancer centres worldwide—and eventually centers for other diseases—securely share their private clinical and research data with one another to generate larger datasets to benefit research and inform the specific treatment of their individual patients.”

Initially, Intel and the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) will launch the Collaborative Cancer Cloud, but the organisations expect two more institutions will be on board by 2016.

From there, Intel said, the organisations hope to federate the cloud service with other healthcare service providers, and open it up for use to treat other diseases like Alzheimer’s.

“In the same timeframe, we also intend to deliver open source code contributions to ensure the broadest developer base possible is working on delivering interoperable solutions. Open sourcing this code will drive both interoperability across different clouds, and allow analytics across a broader set of data – resulting in better insights for personalized care,” Dishman said.

Cancer, Eren Niazi, Medical, Partnerships

ErenNiazi.org Provides Lazarex Cancer Foundation with Free Technology Services

ErenNiazi.org, a nonprofit that offers free technology services to charities, announced today that it will assist the Lazarex Cancer Foundation with rebranding, website redesign, digital marketing and data storage. By drawing on the experts and resources of WSpider, The Coding Tree and Open Source Storage—three Bay Area tech companies—the project will help Lazarex gain visibility and earn donations critical to serving late stage cancer patients.

Founded in 2006 in Danville, California, Lazarex Cancer Foundation advocates for late stage cancer patients who have been told there is no hope. Lazarex’s team guides patients through clinical trial options and provides the financial assistance they need to continue fighting the disease. In total, Lazarex has given its patients 210 extra years of life beyond doctor’s expectations. To spread greater awareness of these services and improve fundraising efforts, Lazarex began exploring ways to build its online presence. Learn more about Lazarex Cancer Foundation at www.lazarex.org.

Alerted to Lazarex’s needs at a private fundraising event, Eren Niazi, founder of ErenNiazi.org, offered to help Lazarex revamp the foundation’s branding, website, marketing strategy and database solution. The new online strategy will help Lazarex build a stream of small, web-based donations to complement fundraising events and other outreach efforts.

Karen Ambrogi, Communications Manager for Lazarex Cancer Foundation, participated in the redesign. She notes “We were surprised and excited by Mr. Niazi’s offer. We know that these much needed technology updates will greatly improve Lazarex’s ability to raise funds and awareness. Additionally the money we save as a result of this donation will give many cancer patients the gift of hope and time.”

While most nonprofits need donations to operate, ErenNiazi.org taps into Niazi’s tech businesses and a volunteer network of experienced technologists to provide charities like Lazarex with the mentorship, services, software and support they need to advance their missions.

WSpider, Niazi’s internet marketing firm, will develop SEO, social media and paid advertising strategies for Lazarex. The Coding Tree, his custom software development shop, will spearhead all aspects of the rebranding and web design. Finally, Open Source Storage, an enterprise storage solutions provider Niazi re-launched in November, will provide hosting and low-cost database services that can grow with Lazarex into the future.

“Organizations like Lazarex need web technology to share their mission with a wider audience, but the costs can be prohibitive,” said Niazi. “By providing our tech expertise at no cost, we can help Lazarex preserve funds that save lives and help the foundation build a technological platform for long-term growth and impact.”

Over the past 10 years, ErenNiazi.org has supported charities dedicated to a wide variety of causes including child welfare, AIDS, cancer, human trafficking and education. In addition to Lazarex Cancer Foundation, ErenNiazi.org is currently providing technology services for The A21 Campaign, Polyphony Foundation, International Sanctuary and the California Kidney Cancer Center.

Cancer, Medical, Oracle, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Oracle Joins Personalized Cancer Care Consortium

Worldwide Innovative Network (WIN) in personalized cancer medicine consortium announces dthat Oracle Health Sciences has become a member of the consortium. Oracle will provide access to its data management, clinical trials, genomics and analytics expertise to help WIN advance its mission of increasing the efficacy of cancer care globally through personalized therapy and early diagnostics.

The development of personalized therapies requires new collaborations between industry, healthcare and academia. This includes the ability to access and build upon the collective knowledge and data of the entire cancer community, including clinical, genomic and patient data leveraging modern information technologies.

Oracle Health Sciences has developed a portfolio of integrated, cloud-based software applications that help advance personalized medicine by enabling new collaboration models between research institutions and healthcare organizations. Specific to the work of the consortium, the Oracle Health Sciences Network accelerates translational research, healthcare analytics, and health information exchange by allowing these organizations to more efficiently share and analyze de-identified data across organizational boundaries.

“To advance personalized cancer care, collaboration among the health sciences community is absolutely essential, but achieving it, from a technology perspective, has presented challenges. Oracle is helping organizations to break down these barriers and lay a foundation for expanded collaboration and new insight. We welcome Oracle’s knowledge and innovation as it joins our ranks,” said Dr. John Mendelsohn, Chairman of WIN Consortium and past President, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“Our overarching goals are to achieve groundbreaking personalized cancer medicine discoveries and to significantly improve the outcomes and quality of life for cancer patients,” said Professor Alexander Eggermont, General Director, Institut Gustave Roussy and Vice-Chairman of WIN Consortium. “With the dropping cost of whole genome sequencing, technology is essential to helping us analyze this rich data and achieve our goals. We welcome Oracle, one of the world’s leading innovators in this field, to our organization, and look forward to its many contributions.”