Our Story

Manta Cares was born from our founder Samira's personal experience as a cancer patient. Samira was diagnosed with breast cancer a week after turning 30. An AYA cancer survivor, she is on a mission to help patients, survivors, and caregivers thrive during their cancer journeys.

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  • Dr. Douglas Blayney

    Doug Blayney, MD, is an oncology physician who specializes in breast cancer. His research focuses on quality improvement in cancer care systems, new drug development, and patient experience improvement. At the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), he was founding Editor-in-Chief of its flagship practice journal, and as President, started the ASCO Quality Symposium and began planning for ASCO’s CancerLinq. He was a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Growth Factor Guideline panel, and is a past member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Oncology Drugs Advisory Committee and the NCCN Board of Directors.

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  • Paula Kim

    Between 1999 and 2004, as Co-founder, CEO, Chairman, and President of the newly formed PanCAN-Pancreatic Cancer
    Action Network
    , I created a unique
    patient navigation and service programs “PALS”- Patient and Liaison Services and Clinical Trials database; along with pioneering programs for Survivor and Caregiver Networks; and Community Based Outreach and Education. For biomedical research, I established a public policy team and program that increased federal funding for pancreatic cancer by more than four hundred percent.

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  • Dr. Brian Druker

    Brian Druker, MD, is the director of the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Knight Cancer
    Institute, associate dean for oncology of the OHSU School of Medicine and the JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research. He performed preclinical studies that led to the development of imatinib (Gleevec) for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and then spearheaded the highly successful clinical trials of imatinib, which led to FDA approval of the drug in record time. This work changed the life expectancy of patients with CML, resulting in a paradigm shift in cancer treatment.

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  • Dr. Don Dizon

    Don S. Dizon, MD, FACP, FASCO, is an oncologist who specializes in women's cancers. He is the director of women's cancers at Lifespan Cancer Institute and director of medical oncology at Rhode Island Hospital. He is an active member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, SWOG cancer research network, and the National Consortium of Breast Cancers, of which he has served as both vice president and president. He is also the Editor of CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, the highest impact and the flagship Journal of the American Cancer Society.

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  • Eric Rodenbeck

    In 2001 Rodenbeck founded data visualization design studio Stamen, where he is Creative Director. The company’s high bar for elegant, data-driven design has brought many brilliant data artists, designers and technologists through its doors. The studio’s pioneering work in the field has inspired countless more. In 2017 Stamen was awarded the National Design Award for Interaction Design by the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum.

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Our Process

We created Manta Planner using principles of human-centered design to empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test our planning tool. Gather user opinions and reflecting on personal cancer experiences, we crafted an all-in-one resource that puts users first and meets the needs of cancer patients and caregivers alike.