Research to the People

What Research to the People does

Research to the People is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2015 and based in San Francisco, California, that builds research consortiums for cancer and rare disease patients through scientific hackathons. Its core offering is a structured Patient Cases Program in which multidisciplinary teams of academic researchers, bioinformaticians, and clinicians convene (initially via in-person weekend hackathons, now also online) to generate multi-omics analyses — including Whole Exome Sequencing, Whole Genome Sequencing, RNA sequencing, proteomics, single cell RNA, CyTOF, cytokine profiling, telomere-to-telomere, and immunomics — for individual patients who have exhausted standard clinical options. The organization has run more than 15 patient cases spanning metastatic colorectal cancer, ovarian cancer, urothelial carcinoma, desmoid tumor, epithelioid sarcoma, neurofibromatosis type 2, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, hypophosphatasia, lung fibrosis, and undiagnosed diseases, anchored by a partnership with Stanford Medicine's Department of Personalized Medicine and Genetics under Dr. Michael Snyder.

The technology stack is centered on a hackathon consortium methodology rather than a single software platform, supplemented by three open-source generative AI models for rare diseases (Zebra Llama for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Rarepath.ai for hypophosphatasia and EDS diagnosis and therapeutic target discovery, and HPP Chat from MIT) developed during a 2024 GenAI Rare Disease Hackathon hosted on AWS infrastructure with GitHub as a distribution partner. Operations are supported by a Grants Program (providing funding opportunities such as a $2,000 neoantigen prediction grant for PhD/Post-Doc researchers) and the Research to the People Journal, which publishes all patient case analysis under an open science framework.

The business model is donation- and grant-driven rather than commercial: Research to the People accepts donations via Stripe online payments and bank wire transfers, plus sponsorship from institutional partners including Alexion (AstraZeneca Rare Disease), and operates without pricing for products or services. Its go-to-market is community-led rather than sales-driven, relying on documentary films, YouTube content, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, GitHub, an Annual Symposium at Stanford Medicine, and direct patient case recruitment. The organization serves three constituencies: cancer and rare disease patients seeking cutting-edge personalized analysis beyond standard of care, academic researchers seeking funding and data access, and rare disease communities seeking zero-barrier AI-assisted expertise.

Name

Research to the People

Legal name

Research to the People

Website

https://researchtothepeople.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Research to the People is a San Francisco not-for-profit that organizes patient-partnered hackathons and multi-omics research consortiums to advance personalized medicine for cancer and rare disease patients with limited clinical options, supplemented by open-source GenAI models for rare diseases.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Personalized Medicine Research

NAICS

Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) (541714), Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (54171)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731), Services-Social Services (8300), Services-Medical Laboratories (8071)

akta.pro primary industry

Disease-Specific Research & Support (e.g., Cancer, Diabetes, ALS) (BPAGACAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Bioinformatics, Multi-Omics Data Analysis & Interpretation Services (HLAGANAI), Molecular Diagnostics & Genomics Laboratories (HLAFAMAE)

Keywords

• Patient-partnered research
• Scientific hackathons
• Personalized medicine
• Rare disease research
• Multi-omics analysis

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Donations: The not-for-profit accepts donations via online Stripe payments and bank wire transfers. Donors can give for patient case and program level funding opportunities.
2. Grant Funding: Research to the People operates a grants program providing funding opportunities to PhD and Post-Doc level researchers working on patient cases. Example grant includes $2000 Neoantigen Prediction grant for academia.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Research to the People is a not-for-profit organization that runs scientific hackathons to bring together multidisciplinary teams of researchers, bioinformaticians, and clinicians to generate multi-omics bioinformatics analysis and personalized medicine insights for individual cancer and rare disease patients with limited clinical options. The integrated program covers patient cases, grants to PhD/Post-Doc researchers, and publication through the Research to the People Journal, with a dedicated GenAI Rare Disease Hackathon series building open-source language models for diseases such as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypophosphatasia.

Product overview

Research to the People is a not-for-profit organization that operates a research consortium model centered on scientific hackathons for cancer and rare disease patients. The core offering combines three integrated programs: the Patient Cases Program (which runs hackathons to generate multi-omics analysis for individual patients), the Grants Program (which funds PhD and Post-Doc researchers working on those cases), and the Research to the People Journal (which publishes resulting analysis). The GenAI Rare Disease Hackathon extends this model specifically for building generative AI language models for rare diseases. Services include Neoantigen Prediction (WES/RNA-based cancer target identification) and comprehensive Bioinformatics Analysis supporting multiple data types including WES, WGS, RNA, scRNA, Proteomics, and Long Read sequencing.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Research to the People Journal: Academic journal for publishing patient case analysis and research findings.
• Research to the People Grants

Products and services

• Patient Cases Program A scientific hackathon consortium model that brings together researchers, bioinformaticians, and clinicians to generate new insights and analysis for cancer and rare disease patients with limited clinical options, including cases spanning metastatic colorectal cancer, epithelioid sarcoma, ovarian cancer, desmoid tumor, neurofibromatosis Type 2, and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.
• Grants Program Funding opportunities for PhD and Post-Doc level researchers working on patient cases, integrating with the Cases and Journal workflow to provide full research support for personalized patient analysis. Example grant: a $2,000 Neoantigen Prediction grant for academia using WES/RNA data.
• Research to the People Journal A publication platform where all analysis for patient cases is documented and published, making research findings accessible to the scientific community and supporting open science principles.
• GenAI Rare Disease Hackathon A hackathon event series that brings AI and medical experts together to build open-source generative AI language models for rare diseases including Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypophosphatasia, creating zero-barrier access to rare disease expertise for patients, researchers, and physicians.
• Neoantigen Prediction Bioinformatics analysis service that generates a list of neoantigen targets from Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) and RNA data for cancer patient cases.
• Bioinformatics Analysis Multi-omics bioinformatics analysis spanning WES, WGS, RNA sequencing, proteomics, single cell RNA, CyTOF, cytokine profiling, telomere-to-telomere analysis, immunomics, and long-read sequencing for individual patient cases.

Named customers8 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability3 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered core and major.

• GitHubcoreGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 January 2024GitHub hosted the Demo Day event for the GenAI Rare Disease Hackathon in San Francisco. The hackathon produced open-source GenAI models for rare diseases that are hosted and made available through GitHub.
• AWS (Amazon Web Services)majorTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2024AWS provides cloud infrastructure support for the GenAI Rare Disease Hackathon, enabling the development and deployment of open-source language models for rare diseases.
• Alexion (AstraZeneca Rare Disease)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024Alexion, part of AstraZeneca focused on rare diseases, sponsors the GenAI Rare Disease Hackathon. The collaboration supports the development of open-source language models for rare diseases.
• Stanford GeneticscoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024Stanford Genetics Department collaborates on the GenAI Rare Disease Hackathon, providing academic expertise and research infrastructure for rare disease AI model development.
• QIAGENmajorTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2024QIAGEN participated in the GenAI Rare Disease Hackathon, contributing biological network analysis for Hypophosphatasia and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis.
• UCSF (University of California, San Francisco)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024UCSF team (Baranzini Lab) including Karthik Soman PhD developed Zebra Llama, a Generative AI model for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome as part of the GenAI hackathon.
• Oregon State UniversitymajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024Oregon State team including Dr. Stephen Ramsey and Dr. Jared Roach developed Rarepath.ai, an AI-driven chat interface for rare disease diagnosis and therapeutic target discovery.
• MITmajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024MIT team developed HPP Chat, a model focused on Hypophosphatasia from a patient use case perspective, as part of the GenAI Rare Disease Hackathon.
• Snyder Lab at StanfordcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024Dr. Michael Snyder's lab at Stanford collaborated on Christine's rare disease case and the FPOP study, contributing expertise in personalized medicine and multi-omics analysis.
• AlixiamajorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2024Alixia collaborated with Research to the People on cancer care research and the organization's community initiatives, contributing to patient case analysis.
• Children's Tumor FoundationcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2021Collaboration on Neurofibromatosis hackathon. The Children's Tumor Foundation partnered with Research to the People for a hackathon focused on NF, creating a consortium approach to this rare disease.
• Stanford MedicinecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2020Research to the People was invited to join Stanford Medicine by Dr. Michael Snyder, Chair of the Personalized Medicine and Genetics Department. The partnership focuses on integrative longitudinal multi-omics and multidisciplinary team translation. Stanford hosts patient cases and the First Annual Symposium featuring Shirley and Vanessa's case work. Dr. Michael Snyder serves as an advisor to the organization.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD): Larger and longer-established rare-disease patient advocacy and research nonprofit serving as an umbrella for organizations like RTTP.
• Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Rare As One Network: Philanthropic initiative funding patient-led rare-disease research networks; overlaps with RTTP's patient-partnered rare-disease mission and open-science orientation.
• NIH NCATS (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences): U.S. government translational research hub including rare-disease programs; serves as a larger funder and coordinator of research consortia comparable to RTTP's case model.

Direct peers

• Sage Bionetworks: Nonprofit that runs open-science collaborative research programs for biomedical and translational research, similar to RTTP's hackathon-driven, open-data model.
• Cures Within Reach: Nonprofit that funds and repurposes existing therapies for rare and neglected diseases, paralleling RTTP's grant-funded research model for underserved patient populations.
• RDMD: Patient-partnered rare-disease research platform that structures patient data for research use, comparable to RTTP's patient-case-driven rare-disease approach.
• Global Genes: Rare-disease patient advocacy and research-support nonprofit, comparable in mission to RTTP's cancer and rare-disease patient-research focus.
• Critical Path Institute: Nonprofit that organizes pre-competitive consortia to develop drug-development tools and share data, mirroring RTTP's collaborative research consortium approach.
• Open Medicine Foundation: Open-science nonprofit driving collaborative research for complex chronic diseases, sharing RTTP's open-data, patient-centered research ethos.
• Every Cure: Nonprofit focused on identifying treatments for rare diseases, particularly through drug repurposing, sharing RTTP's rare-disease mission and nonprofit structure.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/research2people
• GitHubgithub.com/researchtothepeople
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@researchtothepeople
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/researchtothepeople
• Facebookfacebook.com/researchtothepeople

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Research to the People