Category Archives: Cancer

Eric Lefkofsky’s New Startup Partners with the Mayo Clinic

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Eric Lefkofsky considers Chicago his home, and as such he tries to give as much back to the community as he can. His work on a number of important boards including the Board of the Art Institute of Chicago, his postition as Charmain of the Board of Trustees of Steppanwolf Theatre, and his philanthropic foundation, the Lefkofsky Fund are all a part of that. In a differnt way, so is his new Chicago based geonomics startup, Tempus, of which he is one of the co-founders as well as the CEO Lefkosky has been in the tech startup business for some time, and already has the success of one major Chicago based start-up to his credit.

Tempus was created to help analyze data of cancer patients in order to create a database that would better help oncologists understand what kind of treatments work best for which cancers. They are able to analyzize and organize the data from multiple differt kinds of cancers and analyze the geonomes in order to create a more complete picture.

Recently Tempus entered a partnership with the Mayo Clinic to help expand on the data that they already had. Through the new partnership with the Mayo Clinic, the staff at Tempus, of which thier 100 employees include computational biologists, software engineers they are analyzing the data of 1000 patients. Currently the company is able to process the data of 5,000 patients per year. They plan on expanding and hiring more employees this year to increase their capacity. These employees work toghether to create a database of information, which oncologists can then decide how to use.

The Mayo Clinic is giving Tempus data on 1000 of its cancer patients. These are being treated for a variety of cancers, including early and advanced breast cancer, bladder cancer, and lung cancer.

Tempus and Erik Lefkosky hope that this database can help change the way patients are treated. The hope is that the database will further help oncologists understand which courses of treatement work best for differnt cancers. The hope is that patterns will emerge and that there will be much less guesswork for oncologists.

Erik Lefkosky’s Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/eplefkofsky/

Dr. David Samadi Offers Insight On Mitt Romney’s Prostate Procedure

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Prostate Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases to affect older men. One of those affected by the deadly disease was former Republican Presidental candidate Mitt Romney. After early detection and a surgical procedure, Dr. David Samadi offers a healthy outlook for the politician.

The prostate in question was a slow-growing tumor. Once the tumor was detected, Mr. Romney underwent a surgical procedure performed by Dr. Thomas Ahlering at the University of Irvine Hospital. Mr. Romney was one of over 161,000 men who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in the last year.

So how common is prostate cancer? In older men, it is extremely common. In fact, six in ten men over the age of 65 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. The most common age for a man to be diagnosed with prostate cancer is around the age of 66. Mr. Romney was 70 years old when the procedure was performed.

While Mr. Romney is the highest profile politician to undergo prostate surgery, he is not the only political figure to undergo the procedure. In fact, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State Colin Powell underwent a procedure for his prostate in 2003. Before that, former Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry underwent a similar procedure in the year 2002.

After reviewing a number of prostate cases, Dr. David Samadi strongly recommends surgery over radiation. One of the main reasons Dr. Samadi recommends surgery is to prevent the side effects associated with chemotherapy. Citing the increased number of deaths of chemotherapy patients as opposed to surgery patients, Dr. Samadi is an avid proponent of having patients go under the knife. In Dr. David Samadi’s own words, the survival rate of men who have their prostate’s removed by surgery is one hundred percent. Seeing that Mr. Romney opted to have surgery on his prostate, it appears that the former presidential candidate and the possible future Senatorial candidate will be on the road to a full recovery.

Dr. David Samadi is a Urologist as well as the head of the Urology Department and the Chief of Robotic Surgery at Lennox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. Dr. Samadi received his undergraduate degree at Stony Brook University where he received a Bachelor of Science degree. Apon graduation, Dr. Samadi received his medical training at the Montefiore Medical Center in Creteil, France.

Dr. David Samadi info: prostatecancer911.com/david-samadi/

What the Startup, Tempus by Eric Lefkofsky Hopes To Accomplish in Breast Cancer Patients

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Eric Lefkofsky owns the startup company, Tempus, which mostly specializes with collecting and interpreting data from cancer patients. The latest partner to join the venture is the University of Chicago. The university has pledged doctors while Tempus provides the space and the amenities to make the molecular sequencing and analysis possible.

Tempus is a Data Mining Hub

Independent scientists working in different locales might end up taking months to analyze all that data and be on the same page. Thanks to the groundbreaking algorithms powering the innovation by Tempus, however, the researchers now have a simpler route. Computers make out patterns in a matter of microseconds. The findings are then used to come up with personalized care and management plan for breast cancer patients.

Too Much Information, Everywhere

Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade says that research efforts often get thwarted by the absence of a single database containing all the info and stats about all the patients who’ve been diagnosed with particular cancer. Dr. Olopade is the dean School of Medicine, at the University of Chicago. The end-goal of the association with Tempus will be to bring the world’s largest clinical database of breast cancer molecular research.

About Tempus

The health-related startup appeared in 2006. The facilities are endowed with cutting-edge machines which utilize AI technology to process the Metadata derived from their studies. The research firm is housed in the same properties other successful companies by Eric like Drivin, Groupon and Lightbank used to be in. The establishment also collaborates with other prestigious research institutes like The Mayo Clinic, Cancer department of Northwestern University, University of Michigan and the Medical Center at Rush University. Eric Lefkofsky also co-founded Uptake Technologies and Mediaocean tech companies.

Philanthropy

Exactly eleven years ago, Eric together with the wife, Liz, started the Lefkofsky Family Foundation. These were a private organization created to serve a multitude of charitable acts and deeds. Top of the benefices list of Eric’s foundation is the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

British Teen Googles Cancer Symptoms, but Doctors Ignore Her

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The medical system appears to be improving with all the latest in tech equipment and breakthroughs in medicine, so then why was Bronte Donyne, a 19-year-old British teenager allowed to die last week? She had been diagnosed and treated for cancer several years ago, but lately something just didn’t feel right to her, so she began Goggling her symptoms.

Her search led her to believe that the cancer had returned, but her physicians told her to quit Goggling and listen to them; she was fine. This went on for 16 long months, as Bronte struggled with an aggressive cancer that was not being diagnosed in the medical community reports the cellphone service FreedomPop. Finally, she was admitted into the hospital. The doctors could do nothing for her by that time, and she died 10 days later.

By this time, the disease had become too aggressive for any usual cancer treatment, such as surgery, chemotherapy or radiation.

The physician was rude to Bronte’s parents when they were in the hospital, and all the Nottingham University Hospital’s medical director could say was “Sadly, there is nothing we can do.” Where has the compassion for human suffering gone in the world and why? There was no reason for this teen’s death, and the hospital is blaming it on the Internet and Google. In reality, it was probably her own determination that kept her alive as long as she was.