Steve Jobs' Death Sheds Light On 'Silent Killer' Pancreatic Cancer

Amidst an outpouring of social media tributes to Steve Jobs on Wednesday in the immediate aftermath of the Apple co-founder's death, so have donations toward awareness and research of his longtime battle with pancreatic cancer.

Jobs has never been reported as gloating about his philanthropy, although he briefly ran the Steven P. Jobs Foundation, a grant-making organization he created in 1986, but later closed.

However, unlike his former business competitor Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, he did not sign the Giving Pledge nor did he ever make a public gift that appeared on The Chronicle‘s Philanthropy 50, an annual list of the largest charitable gifts, The New York Times has reported.

The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come, long-time rival Gates, told Reuters.

Eighty percent of any donation made to Johns Hopkins Medical University, which built a center dedicated to pancreatic cancer, goes directly to support the science and education efforts combating the illness.

Certain developers are also donating a portion of their profits toward research of the cancer.

For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it's been an insanely great honor, Gates added.

With a very low survival rate of four percent, pancreatic cancer is the tenth most common cause of cancer death in the U.S., as well as across the world, according to the American Cancer Society. And 95 percent of those diagnosed with this cancer will not be alive five years later.

One way supporters say to contribute is by donating directly to organizations dedicated to fighting the deadly illness.

We have sadly learned that Steve Jobs, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Apple, Inc. has passed away. Steve Jobs had battled a rare form of pancreatic cancer since 2004, said Julie Fleshman, president and CEO of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

There are two known types of pancreatic cancer -- adenocarcinoma and neuroendocrine tumor. Jobs was affected by the latter, an extremely rare form with a prevalence rate of 35 affected patients per 100,000.

There are hundreds of reports this evening across news organizations around the country and the world speculating Steve Jobs died due to complications from this insidious disease, Fleshman added.

QuickCal, a calendar application for all Apple products that costs $2.99, posted the following tweet yesterday:

100% of QuickCal profits will be donated for Pancreatic Cancer Research (http://www.lustgarten.org/) until 10/14. Indie devs - plz follow suit.

In 2004, Jobs' tumor was removed in a successful procedure, however, the malignancy had spread beyond the pancreas and, in 2009, Jobs took another leave of absence to undergo a liver transplant.

Through Oct. 14, all profits from downloads of QuickCal will be donated to the Lustgarten Foundation, an organization that researches pancreatic cancer, the disease that took Jobs' life.