Cancer Researcher Used His Own App to Save His Life
Alessandro Hammond had published 38+ papers on cancer. Ironically, he got diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer. While his tumor markers were soaring, he wanted to explore clinical trials and built an AI platform and app called NxtCure that made that process unbelievably simple.
The Story
At 25, I was a Harvard-trained cancer researcher with 38+ publications in oncology. I had done research in oncology and used single-cell multiomics and lineage tracing to understand how cancer evolves in individuals. On a population level, I examined how socioeconomic factors shape treatment access and outcomes across cancers including breast, prostate, colon, liver, and brain tumors. I was in Beijing completing a master’s degree on a Schwarzman Scholarship, one of the world’s most competitive fellowships, when I noticed a lump on my body. The cancer had not presented with any symptoms, which is likely why the stage had gone so high: no pain, no discomfort, no odd feelings, simply a lump I routinely noticed in the shower. I went in for an MRI in Beijing and then physcians recommended an emergency surgery.
The next day, I was on an emergency flight back to the United States for a radical orchiectomy. Pathology confirmed stage 3 cancer with spread to the lymph nodes and lungs. Months later, my tumor markers returned to normal. Doctors believed I had beaten the disease. I believed it too, and started returning to my normal routine, going back to the things that gave my life its former zeal, such as speaking Chinese or skiing double black diamonds on Colorado slopes. Having experienced difficulty in finding clinical trials that I was suited to, I was motivated to make that process simple for patients like me. Inspired by my own experience, just after my surgery, I began building NxtCure.
NxtCure is an AI-powered clinical trial matching platform I co-founded to help patients find trials they’d otherwise never know existed. Unexpectedly, I was not only NxtCure’s founder; I also shortly after became its first user. Sending a request for a match through my own app after going through the traditional route of flying across the country to see doctors who said “wait and see” was surreal. Facing this challenging disease, I was now dependent on an app I had never thought I would need to use myself, certainly not in the immediate future. I used the app to match into a trial at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Through NxtCure, I found a clinical trial that showed I still had active tumor in body, despite thinking I had previously beaten the disease.
The entire process of the clinical trial was seamless. The relevant trial organizers contacted me and I got an appointment in a couple days. A phlebotomist came to my home after that, and found that my tumor markers were soaring. Shortly after I got my results, I was told to start chemotherapy immediately. My exact chemotherapy regimen was BEP (Bleomycin, Cisplatin, and Etoposide). Before my first infusion, surgeons placed a port at the tip of my vena cava, a small but visceral reminder that my body was preparing for chemotherapy.
That first day of chemotherapy was among the hardest of my life; I lacked the energy to stand. In the weeks that followed, I lived with persistent nausea, vomiting, epigastric pain, neutropenia, and the looming fear of nephrotoxicity. The hardest thing about those weeks was not knowing what to do with myself. I struggled to stand, sit or lay down without feeling pain or nausea. Sleepless nights left me drained of all energy. To an outsider, I looked like a lifeless automaton, but internally I was locked in a battle for my life. It was from inside that experience that NxtCure’s mission became undeniable to me.
On the Monday of the first week of chemotherapy, I received an interview invitation for Y-Combinator where I would meet with my cofounder in San Francisco to make our pitch to the same people who backed early versions of DoorDash, AirBnB, and OpenAI. Despite having barely enough energy to focus on the now virtual interview, I knew I had the potential to change the trajectory of NxtCure for patients forever. NxtCure was accepted into the Spring 2026 batch of Y-Combinator.
Today, I am one-third of the way through my chemotherapy and getting better. One of the lung nodules has already disappeared, and I am looking forward to the end of treatment. I continue to build NxtCure, to bridge the gap in my disease trajectory for other patients. I am also continuing my Schwarzman classes virtually and am on track to graduate mid-June.
If you are a patient, or a caregiver, take ownership of your health today and explore what NxtCure has to offer for you.
Alessandro Hammond
Co-Founder & CEO, NxtCure | Y-Combinator S26
Harvard AB | Schwarzman Scholar | Yale MD-PhD