Our new clinical trial for metastatic cancer starting at Moffitt Cancer Center
We're building a groundbreaking treatment tool for metastatic cancer. Our first clinical trial will start at Moffitt Cancer Center in January. Here's an article from Huntsman Cancer Institute on it.
“The core problem of metastatic cancer is it evolves....My goal is turning metastatic cancer, which is currently a lethal disease, into a manageable chronic disease that offers patients a high quality of life for a long time.”
— Christopher Gregg, PhD
Chris Gregg PhD (our Chief Science Officer) co-lead the winning team at this year’s 11th annual Moffitt Cancer Center Integrated Mathematical Oncology (IMO) workshop. At this annual event, where leading thinkers from around the world develop new innovations in cancer care, Gregg and his team created a tool to help oncologists decide the right treatment path for patients with metastatic cancer.
“On the first day we decided to make a tool that would help oncologists determine the right medication dose and treatment for each individual patient, giving them both the best chance at eliminating the cancer and the best quality of life,” Gregg says. “One of the biggest challenges for cancer treatment is that the drugs are toxic, so not only do we need to factor in the disease response but also how much of the medication their body can handle for a specific amount of time.”
Working around the clock, Gregg’s team used data from his own breast cancer treatment to create a prototype. They created an algorithm that uses artificial intelligence to accurately measure patient symptoms detected from vocal and behavioral information captured via smartphone. This allowed them to precisely measure how a patient is doing during their treatments. Based on their symptoms, the algorithm predicts changes to future symptoms. Oncologists will then be able to adjust treatments to help avoid drug toxicity and dangerous side effects, ultimately designing the best plan for each patient.
With a $50,000 grant from the IMO workshop, Gregg and his team will continue to develop the tool, using it in a clinical trial at the Moffitt Cancer Center starting January 2024.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute including P30 CA042014, U54 CA274507, the Moffitt Center of Excellence for Evolutionary Therapy, Storyline Health Inc. (https://lnkd.in/d3WuSJcQ), and Huntsman Cancer Foundation.