Cancer Solutions
The Cancer Prevention Crowd for Good Program seeks to create a self-sustaining initiative where the community identifies advancement opportunities in cancer prevention, and builds solutions that empower the world to innovate.
“A combined crowd innovation and AI approach rapidly produced automated algorithms that replicated the skills of a highly trained physician for a critical task in radiation therapy.”
Mak et al, “Use of Crowd Innovation to Develop an Artificial Intelligence–Based Solution for Radiation Therapy Targeting
JAMA Oncology, April 18 2019
What’s Next?
Previously, our community was able to produce an actionable solution within the Oncology/Cancer field that was successful at both rapidly and automatically delineating cancerous tumors with the same level of skill as experts. What can we achieve next?!
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All about DesignCurrent initiatives
Topcoder has been committed to this work for many years. We will continue to use the collective skill, innovation, and passion of our community to create solutions for the prevention and eventual cure for cancer.
Past initiatives
There are 3 active challenges at the moment, about which you can learn below.
PRECISION MEDICINE IS COMING: HOW HARVARD AND TOPCODER CHALLENGES SEEK TO IMPACT BILLIONS
In a 2011 algorithm challenge, Topcoder — and the very notion of crowdsourcing difficult genetics-based challenges — delivered an incredible result. In a challenge with our partners at Harvard, focused on improving an existing DNA sequence alignment algorithm, dubbed MegaBLAST, a 2-week long Topcoder Marathon Match (our long form algorithmic challenges), resulted in a 976x increase to the computational speed v. the original algorithm. The winning solution also increased the accuracy. This was a smashing success, powered by you, our amazing Topcoder members.
USING AI TO HELP DETECT CANCER AND IMPROVE OUTCOMES: THE STANFORD PANCREATIC CANCER CHALLENGE
Tumor contouring is a manual process in which a radiology specialist reviews digital CT or MRI scans to precisely identify and delineate the location and volume of a tumor. In pancreatic cancer, tumor contouring is completed alongside an assessment of peripancreatic vessel involvement and a resectability-scoring system (RSS) calculation to determine how to approach a tumor resection (the process of cutting out tissue or part of an organ). Although this approach produces results with an exceptional 97% accuracy rate, human intervention, interpretation, and a deficit of qualified clinical staff limit the global scalability of the current path to diagnosis.
One step closer to a solution
Are you a healthcare researcher committed to change through quantitative methods? The Breast Cancer Solutions Challenge is a game-changing new competition that will leverage collaboration to explore the feasibility and resources needed to connect real-world healthcare research data into solutions that will help prevent or cure breast cancer. We want to collaborate with you!
For corporate professionals, this is an opportunity to align this challenge to your company’s overall vision and mission. Your sponsorship would help to create groundbreaking solutions to a world issue that impacts us all.
To our developer community, we value the talent that you bring to the Topcoder Community. Your acceptance of this challenge will bring the world closer to solutions that could prevent or cure world issues like cancer. In this challenge, you get the benefit of knowing that you not only enhanced your skill set, but that you also gain a chance to collaborate with other community members to help change the world. We recognize the demands of your current workload as an IT professional. That is why your acceptance of this challenge is so meaningful.
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