The Prostate Net

05/22/2026

Artificial intelligence is poised to take on a more-active role in the laboratory: two new systems, described today in Nature, use teams of AI agents to develop hypotheses, propose experiments and analyse data.

Each system still relies on human input at various stages, but they boast timelines that can be remarkably shorter than when the process is left to human minds and hands alone. When the systems were asked to identify existing drugs that might be repurposed for different conditions, they arrived at plausible answers in a matter of hours.

Read the article at:

Systems can generate hypotheses, interpret data and suggest ways to develop medicines.

05/22/2026

The Commonwealth Fund is pleased to announce the launch of a major new initiative: State Health Innovation for Transformation Initiative — SHIFT. Centered on listening, engagement, and health care innovation, this multistate initiative aims to build a roadmap for stronger health care systems.

SHIFT kicks off with a grant to United States of Care to engage with community members, health care leaders, policymakers, and others to understand the pain points and opportunities for state-level innovation and transformation in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

SHIFT is one of two new Commonwealth Fund initiatives to build a health care system in which everyone — no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make — can get and afford good health care.

The second initiative, New Vision for the U.S. Health Care System, will engage people and health care leaders across the country to answer one big question: What do we want our health care future to look like? By listening to patients, learning from their lived experiences, and engaging in forward-looking thinking, we will define what an ideal health system could and should be — and then chart a practical path to get there.

For details on the program and to learn how you or your group could participate, see:

Explore our newly updated, enhanced, and expanded International Health Care System Profiles to learn how 31 countries across six continents approach health care.

05/20/2026

Dr. Elisabeth Heath joined Virgil today to talk about emerging protocols in treating advanced prostate cancer, connecting research to community impact, and the May 29th CME Symposium in which she's participating and one that emphasizes the most compelling CME symposia today don’t just ask:

“What is the best treatment?”

They ask:

“For whom, under what circumstances, and aligned with whose values?”

Listen to the conversation at: https://www.ivoox.com/en/dra-elisabeth-heath-audios-mp3_rf_173962053_1.html

and note the info on the upcoming Symposium as to content and to register.

05/15/2026

Next Wednesday on English Radio Barcelona Blue, we speak with internationally renowned oncologist Dr. Elisabeth Heath from the Mayo Clinic about the future of prostate cancer care, groundbreaking therapies, and why personalized medicine is transforming patient outcomes.

Prostate cancer is often described as one disease, yet outcomes can differ dramatically depending on biology, genetics, access to care, and even geography. Dr. Heath, in her roles as Chair of the Department of Oncology and Chair of the Division of Oncology Research, has focused on advancing prostate cancer discovery and patient outcomes through multidisciplinary collaboration, innovative clinical trials and a commitment to optimal health for all.

The interview will be an excellent opportunity to learn about cutting-edge oncology, patient-centered care, and public health initiatives in a compelling radio conversation. This will also give us a bit of a preview to her participation in the upcoming "Continuing the Innovation Story in Prostate Cancer"Symposium to be held in Chicago on May 29th (see: PeerView.com/2026Prostate-Share).

Tune in on Wednesday, May 20th when we will broadcast Live from 4:00 to 5:00PM CET (10:00AM EST) at:
Barcelona Radio: 102.5FM - La Marina Cat
Internet: http://lamarina.cat/endirecte/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

05/14/2026

Dr. Joaquin Mateo, Group Leader of the Prostate Cancer Research Group at Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology, joined Virgil to provide an update on the current level of cancer care and therapeutics.

See the podcast at:

An update on managing prostate cancer with Dr. Joaquin Mateo.

05/12/2026

It is with a great deal of honor to announce that The Prostate Net has been approved for membership in Cancer Patients Europe.

I look forward to this collaborative initiative in the global fight against cancer and being able to represent and empower the voices of cancer patients and cancer survivors towards policymakers and other stakeholders, with the ultimate objective of co-creating policies that drive prevention, high-quality cancer care, treatment and survivorship in Europe.

05/12/2026

Tomorrow on English Radio Barcelona Blue we will have an encore broadcast of our interview with Dr. Joaquin Mateo, Group Leader of the Prostate Cancer Research Group at Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology, providing an update on the current level of cancer care and therapeutics. The broadcast will be available:

4:00 to 5:00PM CET (10:00AM EST) at:
Radio: 102.5FM - La Marina Cat
Internet: http://lamarina.cat/endirecte/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

For those who can't listen at the above time, you can access it on-demand at: https://www.youtube.com/live/jmVVJA2hqbk

An update on managing prostate cancer with Dr. Joaquin Mateo.

05/11/2026

In a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, the authors stated that "costly new health care technologies have historically tended to be less available to financially, racially, and geographically marginalized groups than to the rest of the population."

In the realm of health information technology, this disparity has been labeled the “digital divide” and, while there is wide-ranging belief that the utilization of AI-driven healthcare tools will eliminate this inequality, evidence exists that it may further increase the gap.

The AI-healthcare divide can take several forms:

- It may consist of delayed or reduced adoption of AI by health care facilities and professionals that serve marginalized groups.
- It may also appear in the form of biases within these technologies that adversely affect vulnerable populations.
- It may also reflect (and reinforce) lower levels of digital health care literacy among people in those groups than in the broader population.

"Early studies of the adoption of health care AI show that critical access hospitals, rural hospitals, and hospitals serving large numbers of Medicaid patients are less likely than other hospitals to adopt AI. Lower operating margins, which are prevalent among critical access, rural, and safety-net facilities, are also predictive of reduced rates of hospital AI adoption."

Read the article at: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2600816

From my perspective as a patient advocate with many years of experience in health disparity, the problem and solution is simple: Unless the physician, clinical investigator, hospital, research entity, or healthcare system has a clear core mandate to insure equal and equitable access to healthcare, nothing is going to change and the hand-wringing over health disparities will continue to be part of our societies.

A further digital divide affecting financially, racially, and geographically marginalized groups may develop in the use of health care AI, but some policy approaches could help reduce that gap.

05/08/2026

The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology is now enrolling patients in the ASPIRE trial (A032302)-a large-scale, phase III clinical study investigating whether adding chemotherapy to current standard treatments extends survival for men with advanced prostate cancer.

"ASPIRE is designed to answer a critical question in prostate cancer care. We want to know if intensifying treatment early-by adding the chemotherapy medication docetaxel-to the standard hormone therapy can help patients live longer and maintain a better quality of life."

As part of the National Clinical Trials Network, the Alliance works with community cancer centers across the nation to ensure patients have access to life-changing trials, regardless of their proximity to an urban center or major research hospital.The ASPIRE trial aims to ultimately enroll about 1,200 participants. The study is open to men 18 years of age or older with metastatic prostate cancer as confirmed by imaging studies.

Read the article at:

The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology is now enrolling patients in the ASPIRE trial (A032302)-a large-scale, phase III clinical study investigating whether adding chemotherapy to current standard treatments extends survival for men with advanced prostate cancer.

05/07/2026

A recent article in Nature - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01426-7 - stated that "Grants terminations requested by the administration of US President Donald Trump last year disproportionately affected researchers from under-represented groups, a survey suggests."

The cuts "disproportionately hit researchers from groups that have been historically under-represented in the biomedical sciences, including women, people of colour and investigators from sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQ+), which, in turn, could widen existing knowledge gaps about populations that are already underserved by the US health-care system."

Share with your networks.

A survey reveals sharp divides in who bore the brunt of last year’s spree of grant cancellations by the Trump administration.

05/06/2026

Cancer genomics, precision oncology and digital technologies are rapidly reshaping cancer care, with the potential to improve diagnosis, risk stratification, treatment selection, and cancer risk assessment. Yet their development and implementation have often progressed without sufficiently embedding the perspectives of people most affected by cancer - Patients.

Therefore, I am pleased to be collaborating with The PeerView Institute in a Certified Educational Activity in Chicago, concurrent with ASCO. This seminar will be a LIVE or a VIRTUAL event focusing on Novel Advances and Therapeutic Expansions in Prostate Cancer. It will feature three of the leading clinicians/researchers in the field - Drs. Andrew Armstrong, Elisabeth Heath, and Alicia Morgans - delivering important need-to-know information that will continue the enhancement of innovative techniques.

Apart from being key thought leaders in the field, they are major proponents of patient-centered care that should be of interest to patients, their caregivers, and patient advocacy organizations. This seminar will benefit cancer oncologists in all sectors, clinical cancer researchers, oncology nurses, clinical research organizations and any other healthcare professional looking to improve their knowledge base.

Whether you plan to join us physically or online, register today at:

I just signed up for a prostate cancer live event from