Count Me In: Patient-Partnered Research

Your Tumor and Medical Record Could Unlock Discoveries

We are asking patients to say "Count Me In" and donate something invaluable to cancer research. Your biological samples and medical information will be used for transformative genomic studies that will ultimately lead to a better understanding and faster advances in the treatment of cancer.

Learn how you can get involved in Count Me In patient-partnered research

Dana-Farber is a founding member of Count Me In, a nonprofit organization pursuing a new, patient-partnered approach to cancer research. Count Me In brings patients and researchers together as partners to accelerate discoveries — allowing cancer patients anywhere in the United States or Canada to easily share their medical information, personal experience, and tumor samples for genetic analysis, propelling progress against cancer.

Count Me In empowers individuals living with cancer to contribute to breakthroughs and increase the pace of biomedical research, no matter where they live. Over the next several years, Count Me In aims to enroll more than 100,000 patients living with all major cancer types, as well as rare cancers.

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization designed to benefit patients and researchers, Count Me In is stewarded by four leading organizations:

  • Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
  • The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a leading nonprofit biomedical research institution
  • Emerson Collective, a California-based social change organization
  • The Biden Cancer Initiative, an independent nonprofit organization that builds on the federal government's Cancer Moonshot

Count Me In reaches patients through social media, advocacy groups, and word of mouth, and gets to know them through online surveys. Count Me In asks patients about their experience to help with future studies, and provides regular updates about the status of a project — sharing discoveries that the patients have enabled.

Current Projects

To date, seven Count Me In projects have launched, and thousands of patients have chosen to donate their medical records, tumor samples, and genomic information.

Count Me In's current projects are:

Cancer Patients Partner With Researchers in "Count Me In" Projects

“Count Me In” is a non-profit that offers a new model of patient-partnered research. This video features an interview with Dr. Nikhil Wagle who explains how it's changing how researchers study cancer and how patients can get involved.