Persona
Personalizing cancer treatment and diagnosis
using state of the art AI-based tissue and blood tests
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The Fight Against Cancer
2nd
Leading cause of death worldwide is cancer
90%
Of all cancer deaths is due to metastasis
50%
Cancer patients receive generalized radiotherapy
95%
Of solid tumor cancer patients have aneuploidy
Vision
All people with cancer receive the right treatment with the right dose at the right time.
Mission
Enable precision oncology by applying our patented computational artificial intelligence methods to all solid human tumors thereby completely revolutionizing the predictive and therapeutic landscape in cancer therapy.
Personalized Diagnosis
Few biomarkers exist to guide clinicians in prognosis, therapeutics, and treatment efficacy.
The PersonaDx team has discovered biomarkers that:
- Identify patients with potentially curative metastasis
- Personalize radiotherapy
- Predict how people with cancer will respond to immunotherapy
The major advancements are threefold:
- Identification of patients who are potentially curable with ablative interventions
- Delineation of which patients benefit from immediate chemotherapy and can be spared a dangerous surgery
- Discovery of potential therapeutic targets to treat adverse risk patients.
Our Products
Persona31g
Tumor tissue assay that accurately classifies individual colorectal cancer metastasis into one of three integrated molecular subtypes, based on messenger RNA and microRNA profiles. Gives information about diagnosis and treatment options
Persona150g
Used for the same purpose and produces similar results as Persona31g. This product is developed to run specifically on genetic testing platforms that do not have microRNA (miRNA).
PersonaRTx Heme
A blood-based biomarker test to guide personalization of radiotherapy dose, which augments standard clinical and pathological risk factors and complements tissue-based molecular subtyping to improve prognostication of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer
Persona Ploidy
A biomarker that provides prognostic and therapy predictive information; identifies which patients benefit from immunotherapy alone vs. need radiotherapy added to immunotherapy
"We are currently at the end of the beginning of the revolution in biology and medicine resulting from the understanding of how genetic information was passed generationally. Our capacities are far greater now but the essence of medical practice and our responsibility to the patient remains the same.”
~ Samuel Hellman, M.D., A. N. Pritzker Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Department of Radiation and Cellular Oncology, University of Chicago
Meet Our Team
Ralph Weichselbaum, M.D.
Founder, Chief Scientific Officer
The Daniel K. Ludwig Distinguished Professor, Chairman of The Department of Radiation and Cellular Oncology, and co-Director of the Ludwig Center for Metastasis Research at UChicago. He has over 900 publications in leading medical journals, including The Lancet and NEJM, and over 50 patents. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has also received the Karnofsky Award from ASCO and Gold Medal from ASTRO.
Sean Pitroda, M.D.
Founder, Chief Medical Officer
The Associate Professor of Radiation & Cellular Oncology and a Principal Investigator in the Ludwig Center for Metastasis Research at UChicago. He received the Ullman Scholarship in Translational Cancer Immunology and received a Career Development Award from the LUNGevity Foundation. Dr. Pitroda has over 50 publications and holds numerous patents.
Kevin Donnelly
Founder, Chief Executive Officer
Over 30 years’ experience as an operating executive, entrepreneur, advisor and consultant in developing and operationalizing start-up, growth, turnaround, and digital transformation strategies. He was an operating executive at Baxter International, Cardinal Health, and the College of American Pathologists. He has mentored over 20 healthcare start-ups from inception to accelerated growth.
Our Story
1985
Oligometastasis, a metastatic disease that is limited in the number of metastatic sites and extent of disease, was termed by Dr. Weichselbaum and Dr. Hellman. This instituted new research on improving the diagnosing and treatment of metastatic cancer patients.
2018
Nature Communications publishes Sean Pitroda's article: Integrated Molecular Subtyping Defines a Curable Oligometastatic State in Colorectal Liver Metastasis. This was the first validation of the science and discovery of identifying who is treatable and who is not.
2019
The Lancet publishes the article: Advances in Radioimmunotherapy 3 Integration of Radiotherapy and Immunotherapy for Treatment of Oligometastasis by Dr. Weichselbaum and Dr. Pitroda, providing more information about the treament of oligometastasis.
2022
PersonaDx was founded to benefit patients living with cancer, partnering with their providers, genomics companies, biotech and pharma
Ready to work with us?
Send us a message and let's talk about it.
600 West Jackson Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60661
