CureTogether: A Social Network for Patients to Share Symptoms and Solutions to Improve Thier Health Click Here for Additional Resources
Daniel Reda, Co-founder of CureTogether.com, will talk about this new social network that helps people anonymously track and compare health data, to better understand their bodies, make more informed treatment decisions and contribute data to research.
Aired LIVE on:
Thursday, May 28, 2009 Listen to internet radio with Pharmaguy on Blog Talk Radio
You may also visit this Pharma Marketing Talk Segment Page to listen to the audio podcast.
This show and ALL Pharma Marketing Talk shows are available as podcasts via PMT on iTunes (FREE!).
Background
The Wall Street Journal had this to say about Alexandra Carmichael and CureTogether.org (see “The New Examined Life: Why more people are spilling the statistics of their lives on the Web”):
Alexandra Carmichael, the founder of a health research Web site called CureTogether in San Francisco, has been tracking more than 40 different categories of information about her health and personal habits. In addition to her daily caloric intake, her morning weight and the type and duration of exercise she performs, she also tracks her daily mood, noting descriptions such as “happiness” and “feeling fat.”
From her initial readings, she concluded that her mood went up when she exercised and went down when she ate too much. “I realized my relationship with food is a distorted, unhealthy one,” Ms Carmichael says. She has concluded that she may have an eating disorder and has decided to seek counseling.
Alexandra Carmichael and Daniel Reda launched CureTogether in July 2008 to help the people they knew and the millions they didn’t who live in daily chronic pain. Starting with 3 conditions, it quickly expanded as people wrote in to request that their conditions be added to this ongoing study. CureTogether is currently funded by its founders, and does not host or receive funding from advertising.
Questions/Topics Discussed
- Please explain how people use CureTogether to improve their health
Guest Bio
Daniel Reda brings 15 years of experience as a bio-IT entrepreneur to CureTogether. He co-founded Redasoft in 1997 with Alexandra Carmichael to help life scientists visualize complex genetic information and design molecular biology experiments in a simple, visual way, with applications ranging from cancer and AIDS research to potato crop research. Hitachi Software acquired Redasoft’s technology in 2006. Daniel also designed the first social web application for bioinformatics.
A former molecular biologist and self-taught programmer, he was named a “Bio-IT Champion” by Bio-IT world and was nominated for MIT Technology Review’s Top 35 under 35 award. Daniel believes in the power of listening and bringing people together to better understand disease.
Additional Resources
