During clinical studies, the Virtual Cancer Patient Engine (VCP) was found to be 70 percent accurate in predicting individualized patient response to chemotherapy drugs. The significance of the ability of this new technology to make accurate predictions in cancer treatments that will work before treatment begins is a 40 to 45 percent better accuracy rate than is currently predicted by oncologists. VCP analyzes how chemotherapy drugs will affect the growth of the cancer, how the chemotherapy drugs will behave in the body and how the cancer cells will respond to the chemotherapy drugs using mathematical modeling and computerized simulation between biological, pathological and pharmacological processes of drug-patient interactions.

According to researcher Dr. Abhik Mukherjee, "Every cancer is slightly different and every patient will respond to treatment differently. We wanted to find a way to predict how patients would respond to a particular drug in order to limit their side effects and give them the best chance of beating their disease."

Rather than throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, as Katie Couric described current cancer treatments, this technology has the potential for creating individualized treatments specific to the patient and their cancer in determining what will work ahead of time without putting the patient through unnecessary treatments that will not work. To learn more, visit Optimata.

Last night I watched the first of the two-part series Breaking the Cancer Code with Katie Couric. Current chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer are, as Couric called it, "a scorched body approach" for cancer patients. "They throw everything against the wall to see what sticks."

It is frustrating for the cancer patient, for the oncologist, for the cancer community. Why haven't we made more advancements, why don't we understand cancer any better than we do, why must we endure treatments that attack healthy cells in order to kill off cancerous ones with generalized treatments that might or might not stick? Because, right now, that's all there is to offer in the fight against cancer.

Which makes Couric's news feature all that more compelling -- and hopeful. The scientific community is beginning to make progress in discovering what cancer cells are made of and how they work. As a result, an emerging class of cancer treatment drugs, called targeted therapies, are beginning to show promise. Drugs that target the cancer cell without causing any collateral damage to healthy cells, like Herceptin, Gleevec and Avastin. Herceptin targets proteins on the surface of the cell, Gleevec works inside the cell to block cancer's growth and Avastin shuts down the blood vessels that feed the tumor.

Johns Hopkins University's Dr. Bert Vogelstein has spent 30 years unraveling the secret codes to cancer, and when referring to cancer he is quoted as saying, "It was a total mystery, a black box. It was like some plague from outer space."

Tonight, Couric takes a look at super computers that can take cancer cells and test which treatments work and which ones remain ineffective in treating an individual cancer -- before the cancer patient begins treatment. To watch an off camera discussion between Couric and CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook regarding targeted cancer therapies and super computers, watch this video.

Since the 1998 launch of National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, Olympus has been actively involved in raising public awareness for colorectal cancer, and in fundraisers to support colorectal cancer research. Olympus pioneered the development of colorectal cancer screening and treatment endoscopic technology that identifies and remove polyps before they turn deadly. As a member of the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable, Olympus has partnered with public, private and voluntary colorectal cancer organizations each year in fundraising cancer campaigns.

This year, actor Dennis Quaid joins the colorectal cancer campaign encouraging Americans over the age of 50 to get screened for colorectal cancer. In a new public service announcement created by Olympus and the Entertainment Industry Foundation's National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance, EIF's NCCRA, Quaid states, "You might look and feel fine, but once you turn 50, you need to get screened for colon cancer. I did." Quaid added, "Colon cancer was a taboo subject until recently. I figured if Katie Couric could have her colonoscopy broadcast on national television, I could speak out about having one. Hopefully, other baby boomers will talk to their doctors about it and get tested for this highly preventable disease." Olympus will donate 5 percent of the manufacturer's retail price of all Stylus digital cameras sold to EIF's NCCRA. So, if you are shopping for a camera anyway, check out Olympus.

In 1998, Katie Couric lost her husband, Jay Monahan, criminal defense attorney and television legal commentator, to colon cancer. Monahan was 41 at the time of colon cancer diagnosis, and both Katie and Jay struggled to find treatment options. After her husband's death eight months later, Couric wanted to create a clinic the two would have appreciated during Monahan's battle with cancer. In 2004, The Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health, named in his honor, opened its doors as a clinic of integrated care, focusing on prevention, screening, treatment, support, research, and education for individuals who have or are at risk for developing gastrointestinal cancers.

"Clearly this is precisely the kind of center we wish had existed when Jay was diagnosed," Couric says. "It was very difficult to decipher the different medical jargon about treatment plans. It was a very lonely and isolating experience and very harrowing to go from one specialist to another. Having this comprehensive center full of compassionate caregivers all under one roof would have been a wonderful place for us to go. The opening was a bittersweet occasion, but the center is going to be incredibly helpful to thousands of families and what can be better than that?"

Last night, to raise funds for both Katie Couric's Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance and the Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health, celebrities from film, television and recording donated their time and talent for Hollywood Meets Motown at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Helping to raise funds for the foundations were: Ashford & Simpson, The Bacon Brothers, Tiki Barber, Tony Bennett, Big & Rich, Chris Botti, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, LL Cool J, Elvis Costello, Rosario Dawson, Robert De Niro, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Whoopi Goldberg, Chaka Khan, Greg Kinnear, John Legend, Martina McBride, Michael McDonald, Idina Menzel, Smokey Robinson, Jordan Rudess, James Taylor, Steve Tyrell, and Vanessa Williams.

With all the fun a gala evening of good music can be, I feel certain it will always be bittersweet moments for Couric, who now works with so much dedication to easing the struggles cancer patients must endure, and ultimately, preventing others from losing the love of their life to the cruelty of cancer, as she did.

In 1998, Katie Couric lost her husband, Jay Monahan, in the prime of his life, to colon cancer. Since then, Couric has been a passionate crusader in raising public awareness about colon cancer and in stressing the vital importance of colon cancer screening for everyone over 40 years of age. "Jay was just 41 when he was diagnosed, and it would have taken a very astute doctor to pick up on it being colorectal cancer early on," says Couric. "He was pretty much asymptomatic. He had no family history. You can be feeling perfectly fine – on top of the world physically – and still have colorectal cancer. One of the many difficult things about this disease is you often have no symptoms. You may not have blood in your stool, or have lost weight or your bowels habits may not have changed. But you could still have the disease."

In 2000, Couric helped co-found the Entertainment Industry Foundation National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance, EIF's NCCRA, an organization who works to raise public awareness about colon cancer, the importance of screening and in funding cutting-edge research. Celebrities Morgan Freeman, Dennis Quaid and Ray Romano, who appears in a video PSA to help promote awareness for colon cancer and raise funds through the sale of philosophy's laughing gas bathroom spray on QVC, have joined Couric in spreading her colon cancer awareness message intended to save lives, "Please, get tested. This one can be cured."

Other celebrity friends who have helped Couric raise colon cancer awareness and the need for colon cancer screening are: Colin Farrell, Dennis Franz, Heidi Klum, Mandy Moore, Judge Judy Sheindlin, and the "Peanuts" characters on behalf of the late Charles Schultz.

In observance of National Colon Cancer Awareness Month, the Entertainment Industry Foundation's National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance, EIF's NCCRA, is offering free laughing gas, an air-freshening product, if you contribute $20 dollars or more to help support the organization's colon cancer awareness and research programs.

According to philosophy, makers of laughing gas, they may create a bit of bathroom humor with the new laughing gas product, but the fundraising effort for colon cancer awareness, screening and research is definitely no laughing matter. In addition to the EIF's NCCRA free offer of laughing gas, philosophy is donating 100 percent of net profits of the sale of laughing gas to support EIF's NCCRA. "Give your bathroom the aroma of a great-smelling bakery, and every time you give a quick spray, remember you are also helping to help fight colon cancer."

In 2000, Katie Couric, Lilly Tartikoff and the Entertainment Industry Foundation established the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance. Since that time,  public awareness about colon cancer has led to a 20 percent increase in colonoscopies nationwide. University of Michigan researchers refer to this as the "Couric Effect."