Key clinical point: Over the past decade crowdsourcing - electronic-based communication that links otherwise disparate individuals or groups - has begun to transform a significant segment of all types of biomedical research, with effects on oncology that seemingly are among the strongest.

Major finding: Crowdsourcing is now happening at multiple steps in cancer research, from linking patients with studies to data collection, to an end game that offers the data to anyone interested in taking a crack at analyzing it, drawing conclusions, or generating hypotheses for further study.

Study details: Interviews with several leaders in the field.

Disclosures: Two people interviewed for this article have financial connections to various pharmaceutical companies.

Read the article.