Up at 5AM: The 5AM Solutions Blog

The New York Times reported today that Color Genomics, a Silicon Valley startup has raised $115 million to make a $249 genetic test a reality. The test identifies faulty BRCA, as well as more than a dozen other cancer-related genes. BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are responsible for increasing women’s risks for developing certain breast and ovarian cancers. Filmmaker and actress Angelina Jolie has made headlines over the past few years for her decisions to undergo a preventive mastectomy, and more recently, a preventive oophorectomy in response to her own gene-related disease risks.

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Tags: cancer, biomedicine, 23andMe, diagnostic test development, diagnostics, BRCA

This year, 2000 men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Fewer than 500 of them will die from the disease. In general, men's chances of developing the disease are about 100 time less that of women's. Comparatively, about 200,000 women will receive a breast cancer diagnosis.

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Tags: cancer awareness, clinical trials, diagnostics, BRCA

As I said in my introductory post to this series on the Map of Biomedicine, there’s incredible value in being to able to understand how things operate at a high level and also be able to drill down and see details. At the end of that post I showed a picture of the Map of Biomedicine that I’ve been working on. We’ll get back to talking about the overall map later, but for now I want to talk about some parts of the map in more detail. And just to answer one question up front: I’m sure this map will change. I’m guessing that in the process of writing these blog posts and fielding questions and comments, I’ll identify gaps and adjustments that will make the map more complete.

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Tags: map of biomedicine, diagnostic test development, diagnostics, BRCA