ALEXANDRA CARMICHAEL

The KurzweilAI.net article Patients and Researchers Collaborate to Find Medical Cures said

Patients suffering with the daily pain of medical conditions now have a place to go share information and resources with other patients and researchers.

CureTogether, a San Mateo, CA startup, plans to announce Thursday a free health research service to bring together patients and researchers to make discoveries in a new, collaborative way.

The first conditions being studied are migraine, endometriosis, and vulvodynia; each affect more than five million Americans. Patients will also be able to share ideas and provide their anonymous medical data to an aggregate database available "open source" to any researcher in the world to study.

"We chose these conditions because they are underfunded, involve daily pain, and have personal meaning for us," said cofounder Alexandra Carmichael. "We saw the suffering of our close family and friends with these chronic conditions, and we wanted to do something to help." So they partnered with the Chandran Family Foundation for Healthcare Research and Education and researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "We may expand to other conditions if enough patients come together to request it," she added.

Alexandra Carmichael has spent 15 years bridging the gaps between life science research, internet technologies, design, and business. She cofounded Redasoft Corporation in 1997 and codeveloped its Visual Cloning software to help life scientists visualize complex genetic information and design molecular biology experiments in a simple, visual way.

Her understanding and translation of customer needs resulted in a product praised for its intuitive ease of use in more than 20 independent journals, including Science. Visual Cloning was licensed by over 450 organizations in 37 countries, with applications ranging from developing new treatments for diseases such as cancer, AIDS, and cystic fibrosis, to increasing agricultural yields by reducing the need for pesticides and fertilizers, to improving industrial processes such as brewing and electronics manufacturing. Hitachi acquired the technology in 2006.

Alexandra also helped to design the first social web application for bioinformatics. She is now cofounder of CureTogether, an open source health research company that brings patients and researchers together to collaborate with each other on the path to finding cures for human diseases. An active blogger and Tai Chi evangelist, she is dedicated to finding creative ways to use her combination of skills to help as many people as she can in the world.

She authored Voices from The Body Chronic: An Update from Alexandra, Voices From The Body Chronic: Ray of Light After 10 Years of Pain, The 10 Pillars of Learning Anything, The Empath and the Missing Tooth, Transhuman Transition, Math Explosion, What I Need, Electric Blood, and Transitions and Novelty. Read her blog Earth Change.

Alexandra earned her B.Sc. (with honors) in Molecular Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of Toronto - University of St. Michael's College in 1998.

Print bio!