Marty Tenenbaum’s own experience with cancer taught him much about the need patients and doctors have for information about the treatment of the disease that is both personalized and actionable. One lesson from molecular biology is that cancer is not a heterogeneous disease. Tenenbaum is hoping to capture data from patients who have failed available therapies and instead are being treated with off-label use of cancer drugs. To that end, he created the non-profit Cancer Commons. The effort seeks to capture data that can allow researchers, doctors, and patients to learn as much as possible from individual patient experiences and help them match a growing arsenal of targeted therapeutics to the needs of individual cancer patients based on their subtype of the disease. We spoke to Tenenbaum about his new initiative, how his own experiences led to its formation; and how it may change the way researchers, patients, and doctors approach cancer.

Links:
CollabRx's
Cancer Commons
Targeted Therapy Finder—Melanoma