Pfizer has partnered with Inspire, the largest online health community and patient engagement platform, along with Boston Children’s Hospital and Citizen Genetics, to locate difficult-to-find patients who may have a genetic resilience to lung cancer.

Pfizer researchers are seeking patients with a family history of autoimmune diseases who have either quickly recovered from lung cancer or never fallen ill with it despite risk factors. 

Through this study, Pfizer hopes to identify a shared genetic variant that could lead to a new genetically targeted treatment for either the autoimmune conditions or lung cancer. 

Because these patients aren’t seriously ill and may not normally be considered for genetic analysis, recruiting them through traditional means would have been extremely challenging. However, the Inspire platform, which connects patients with cancer, autoimmune, and many other conditions, provides a unique opportunity for researchers to identify and recruit these hard-to-find patients. 

The study was recently highlighted in “Precision Medicine.”