The State of Cancer Innovation in Chicago

Cancer is one of the most challenging problems an innovator could choose to tackle.

There are more than 100 types of the complex chronic disease, and about 40% of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lifetime, according to the National Cancer Institute. And while death rates from cancer have been slowly decreasing in the US since the 1990s, 1.6 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed and 595,000 people died of cancer in 2016. The number of people living with cancer is expected to rise to almost 19 million by 2024.

But the enormity of the problem hasn't stopped founders, technologists and researchers in Chicago from seeking ways to disrupt this massive public health problem.

Chicago's network of universities and healthcare systems has led to a hub of research and innovation coming out of the public sector. University of Chicago is home to the largest cancer data repository in the world, the Genomic Data Commons (former Vice President Joe Biden is a fan). Northwestern, University of Illinois at Chicago and Northeastern Illinois University are partners in the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative (ChicagoCHEC) which researches and incubates projects around equity in cancer healthcare. Several local universities, including UIC, Northwestern, UChicago, Loyola, and Rush have centers devoted to cancer care and research.

Increasingly private sector founders are jumping in the fight as well: Eric Lefkofsky made headlines when he pivoted from data for e-commerce to data for cancer research with his startup Tempus. Former Googler and University of Illinois Urbana Champaign alum Jeff Huber chose his commencement speech at UIUC to discuss his early-detection cancer startup Grail. The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship, Northwestern's N.XT Fund, and healthcare-focused incubators Matter and Healthbox work with and fund startups that are fighting cancer from the ground up.

That's why we created an editorial series looking at the Chicagoans finding new and innovative ways to fight this devastating disease. We covered stories about big data's role in fighting cancer, who's funding and investing in cancer innovation, startups focused on improving patient care, a list of startups in Chicago fighting cancer, and a startup founder who's battle with cancer inspired his ambitious venture.

Here's a look at our full series on innovation in the fight against cancer in Chicago: