Meeting Summary
Advanced prostate cancer patients Brian McCloskey and Rick Stanton introduced themselves, their medical history, and their objectives for the Prostate Cancer Lab.
- Brian McCloskey: 56-year-old tech marketing executive; diagnosed 5.5 years ago; on abiraterone; sees the challenge of personalizing his treatment as hinging on data and analytics; wants to bring cutting edge diagnostic data and integrate it to understand his disease and guide his treatment.
- Rick Stanton: bioinformatician with many years in the pharmaceutical industry, including at Human Longevity, Inc., and Amgen; Stage IV; on chemo; wants to bring emerging research diagnostic technologies to his treatment decisions.
CancerHacker Lab founder Brad Power moderated and shared an overview of the Prostate Cancer Lab and its purpose.
- Building on the hackathon for advanced prostate cancer patient Bryce Olson in 2021.
- Lab process: attract patients, gather data, analyze data and find treatment options, define treatment strategy.
- Have attracted diverse companies and individuals willing to help: diagnosticians, bioinformaticians, treatment matching, patient advocates, and clinicians.
- Focus on accelerating the use of cutting edge diagnostics (RNA, proteomics, single cell, spatial analysis), which are currently “Research Use Only”, for clinical decision-making.
Several of the participants introduced themselves, including:
- Nik Schork: of TGen, an organization bridging between health data and clinical guidance – has developed a protocol, approved by an IRB, to grant patients access to research data about them.
- Rick Davis: leader of AnCan, a community of cancer patients – clarified treatment options.
- Lea Ann Biafora: oncology nurse, founder of Beacon Associates;
- Jason Sager: pediatric oncologist;
- Stacy Hurt: patient advocate, colorectal cancer survivor;
- Jeff Waldron: healthcare community connector;
- Jan Sobieralski: advanced prostate cancer patient.
- Meeting Transcript (Temporarily restricted)