The Polish founders transforming US cancer care with AI precision medicine
hen I first met Jan at Ataraxis, I was immediately struck by him. He’s one of those rare people who combine exceptional IQ with equally strong EQ. From our very first conversation, I was deeply impressed, not only with the bold vision but also his combination of elite technical expertise, deep understanding of the patient journey and relentless ability to execute.
Today, Ataraxis is the first truly AI-native precision medicine company. They have built state-of-the-art AI world models for oncology that learn tumor biology and how its changes affect patient outcomes and treatment response.
“Madelene was the first to believe in us when all we had was an idea. Bringing novel technologies to patients can take years and is much more complex than most software solutions. It requires support from people who understand. There are few investors who are willing to take this risk, but that early conviction was foundational and allowed us to create tools that today help patients every day.”
Ataraxis has now collected the most comprehensive multi-modal database of breast cancer patients spanning tens of thousands of patients from dozens of institutions worldwide.
Jan grew up in Poland, the son of a father who wrote medical textbooks. He started building websites at a young age, showing strong technical instincts early on. Yet, instead of pursuing a purely technical path, he chose medicine. After completing his PhD in Poland, he joined Harvard as a research fellow, and later moved to NYU for his post-doc. There he met Krzysztof, an associate professor at NYU and CTO and co-founder of Ataraxis. Ataraxis has collected the most comprehensive multi-modal database of breast cancer patients spanning tens of thousands of patients from dozens of institutions worldwide.
Most importantly, Ataraxis has already translated the science and AI world models into tools that are being used every day to help cancer patients. Ataraxis Breast is a suite of tools for breast cancer physicians and patients that help assess recurrence risk and personalize systemic therapies. Traditionally, doctors have relied on broad statistical charts, leaving patients with uncertainty and limited insight into their individual prognosis. Ataraxis changes that, delivering significantly improved outcome predictions and enabling far more personalized treatment decisions.
A Clear Step Forward
more accurate detection than current standards of care.
