Most doctors feel for their patients and we empathize with the challenges of their illness.  We work to the best of our experience and understanding to find cures, solutions, or sometimes just more comfort.  But when it comes to big challenges, such as advancing treatment options for diseases like Melanoma, sometimes empathy is not enough.  Sometimes what sparks the motivation to find solutions or cures is personal experience….

That is what spurred e-commerce entrepreneur, Marty Tennenbaum.  While he’s not a doctor or even medical researcher, he does know his way around computers, and the value of “open source” as a route to developing solutions.  So, after surviving Melanoma in the late ’90s he begin applying his expertise to help move the needle on treatment solutions.

Many scientists today work in relative isolation, left to follow blind alleys and duplicate existing research. Data are fragmented — trapped behind firewalls, locked up by contracts or lost in databases that can’t be accessed or integrated. Materials are hard to get — universities are overwhelmed with transfer requests that ought to be routine, while grant cycles pass and windows of opportunity close.

Marty recognized that dilemma and his doing his part to use his tech know-how to bring about a tool to help solve that problem:  An app.

Dr. Marty Tenenbaum, a survivor of melanoma, shows off his free Cancer Commons app

Launching today (1/18/11), the “Cancer Commons” app will integrate existing data about melanomas, and cross reference promising experimental treatments.   Then, patients or doctors can in put patient-specific info on the progression of the disease including test results, such as specific genetic mutations.

“From that information, the app tells patients what specific cancer “subtype” they have as determined by an expert panel. They also learn what drugs have shown the most promise in treating that specific form of the disease and where clinical trials are being conducted that could allow patients access to that treatment.”

Marty explains that he’s just “trying to pull together all the pieces that are needed to do a real, rational attack on cancer.”

…’The way to do that,’ he says, ‘is to pull people out of their individual labs, offices and hospitals to collaborate in a way not possible before the Web and mobile technologies made it easy to pool vast amounts of information.

‘How much of cancer could be turned into a manageable disease if we only knew what we knew?’”

It’s a challenge to wrap our arms around the collected knowledge of thousands of researchers.  Groups like Health Commons and Open Science are taking a page from today’s socially networked world to tap that trust and are working to throw open the doors to the brain trust.  MoleSafe and Melanoma Updates applauds this approach, and gives Marty Tennenbaum and the collected participants pitching in a big Hat’s On Award to helping shine the light on the way to a cure for Melanoma and other cancers.