Highlight HEALTH 2.0 » oncology http://www.highlighthealth.org New ideas impacting health and medicine Fri, 18 May 2012 01:20:28 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Foundation Medicine: Top 10 Innovative Biomedicine Companies in 2012 http://www.highlighthealth.org/innovation/foundation-medicine-top-10-innovative-biomedicine-companies-in-2012/ http://www.highlighthealth.org/innovation/foundation-medicine-top-10-innovative-biomedicine-companies-in-2012/#comments Wed, 02 May 2012 14:01:30 +0000 Walter Jessen http://www.highlighthealth.org/?p=1096 Foundation Medicine is one of 10 biomedicine companies included in Technology Review’s 50 Most Innovative Companies (TR50) for 2012 [1]. What is a TR50 company? It is a business whose innovations force other businesses to change their strategic course. TR50 companies are nominated by Technology Review’s editors who look for companies that, over the last year, have demonstrated original and valuable technology, are bringing that technology to market at a significant scale, and are clearly influencing their competitors.

Foundation Medicine

Foundation Medicine was founded by world leaders in genome technology, cancer biology and medical oncology from several renowned institutions, including the Broad Institute, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company plans to launch a clinical diagnostic test this year that uses the latest in genetic sequencing technology —  next generation sequencing — to identify personalized cancer therapies for patients. Specifically, Foundation Medicine plans to sequence approximately 200 genes, focusing  on genes and pathways that have been shown to have clinical application. The company views this as the ”sweet spot” between conventional hot spot testing (common today) and whole genome/exome sequencing.

Foundation Medicine is backed by Third Rock Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Ventures, bringing the scientific and medical expertise of its founding advisors together with the company-building expertise of the leading venture capitalists in the life sciences, molecular diagnostics and emerging technology fields.

Foundation Medicine was chosen to be a TR50 company because its new diagnostics exploit a growing understanding of the molecular basis of cancer. The company is partnering with pharmaceutical companies and plans to use the comprehensive cancer diagnostic test in drug development.

Interested in other Top 10 Innovative Biomedicine companies for 2012? Check them all out with the tag 2012 Biomedicine TR50.

References

  1. The 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2012. Technology Review. Accessed 2012 Apr 10.


]]> http://www.highlighthealth.org/innovation/foundation-medicine-top-10-innovative-biomedicine-companies-in-2012/feed/ 0 Digital Pathology and Visuvi Visual Search http://www.highlighthealth.org/software/digital-pathology-and-visuvi-visual-search/ http://www.highlighthealth.org/software/digital-pathology-and-visuvi-visual-search/#comments Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:07:05 +0000 Walter Jessen http://blog.highlighthealth.info/?p=459 At the 2009 JavaOne Conference in June, Visuvi Inc., a Redwood City, California-based company developing visual search solutions, announced a Java-based visual search technology that integrates a JavaFX front-end with PathXchange, a Web 2.0 pathology portal. The Visuvi Java application enables medical professionals to take a digital biopsy image of 50,000 x 60,000 pixels (that’s 3000 mega pixels) and search medical images in leading databases for similarities.

The power of this technology is that the medical images in the databases have corresponding case information. Thus, images that are found to be similar also provide information on patient diagnosis, treatments, outcomes, etc. This is particulary useful in oncology since, in more cases than you’d expect, pathologists disagree on whether a particular image shows cancer or not [1-3]. By comparing pathology images, the technology greatly accelerates the review process and allows a diagnosis to be more objective than what is currently done.

Check out their demo at the conference in the video below. James Gosling (the inventor of Java) was clearly impressed with the significance of the technology. Chris Boone, CEO and president of Visuvi, and Florian Brody, VP Marketing, highlighted and captured a section of an actual prostate cancer biopsy image and searched 90,000 images in 0.3 seconds to find related patient cases.

PathXchange is a not-for-profit professional networking portal for the global pathology community. PathXchange brings the field of pathology into the digital age with Web 2.0 features designed to promote exchange of pathological cases, knowledge and information, combining the elements of a case gallery, community content contribution and professional networking.

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References

  1. Farmer et al. Discordance in the histopathologic diagnosis of melanoma and melanocytic nevi between expert pathologists. Hum Pathol. 1996 Jun;27(6):528-31.
    View abstract
  2. Lettieri et al. Discordance between general and pulmonary pathologists in the diagnosis of interstitial lung disease. Respir Med. 2005 Nov;99(11):1425-30. Epub 2005 Apr 21.
    View abstract
  3. Lodha et al. Discordance in the histopathologic diagnosis of difficult melanocytic neoplasms in the clinical setting. J Cutan Pathol. 2008 Apr;35(4):349-52.
    View abstract


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