Cancer
August 28, 2020
2020 Gerstner Awards boost research in AI cancer algorithms, neurodegenerative diseases
By Susan Murphy 
Veronique Belzil, Ph.D., assistant professor in Mayo Clinic’s Department of Neuroscience in Jacksonville, Fla., and Feichen Shen, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biomedical Informatics in Rochester, Minn., are this year’s recipients of the Gerstner Family Career Development Awards. The competitive awards are presented annually by Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine to researchers who are early […]
Tags: #Gerstner Family Career Development Award, ALS, artificial intelligence, Gerstner Family Foundation
August 12, 2020
Could population genetic screening improve public health?
Hereditary BRCA-related breast and ovarian cancer, Lynch syndrome and familial hypercholesterolemia are estimated to be relatively prevalent in the general population but poorly found using traditional risk screening. In a typical medical practice, genetic testing for these conditions is based on personal or family history, ethnic background or other demographic characteristics, that may not always […]
Tags: #Familial hypercholesterolemia, breast cancer, Dr. Matthew Ferber, lynch syndrome, mayo clinic, Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine, ovarian cancer, population health genomics, Research
June 16, 2020
Mayo Clinic, NASA team up to test AI algorithm on colorectal cancer
By Susan Murphy
Mayo is working with NASA to sequence the path of cancer — from what causes it to what drives it, and potentially how to prevent it. Mayo researchers and NASA Frontier Development Lab data scientists are embarking on a research sprint this month to optimize an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm for colorectal cancer and possibly […]
June 1, 2020
Seeing cancer, but not through a microscope
By Susan Murphy
By Marla Broadfoot, Ph.D. / Discovery’s Edge Toward the end of the 19th century, a French doctor named Ernest Besnier coined the term “biopsy,” combining the Greek bios (life) and opsis (a sight). In the decades since, clinicians have performed countless biopsies on suspected cancer patients, all to catch a glimpse of cells on the […]
Tags: cancer, Cancer Research, Genetics, Research
May 11, 2020
AI enhances MRI images to identify molecular markers of brain cancer
By Sharon Rosen 
Five years ago Bradley Erickson, M.D., Ph.D. never would have imagined that an MRI would be able to identify the molecular characteristics of brain cancer. But because of the rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), that scenario isn’t science fiction. It’s an exciting medical reality for Dr. Erickson, a radiologist on Mayo Clinic’s campus in […]
Tags: artificial intelligence, cancer, gliomas
April 27, 2020
Noninvasive test may help some patients with melanoma avoid lymph node biopsy
By Jay Furst
A Mayo Clinic-led research team has developed a test for patients who have melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, that shows whether they’re at risk of the cancer spreading to other areas of the body. The research, described in the journal JCO Precision Oncology, could allow some patients at low risk of metastasis […]
March 5, 2020
Rise in kidney cancer spurs Mayo researcher’s urgency to improve patient outcomes
As a trainee oncologist, Thai Ho, M.D., Ph.D., was struck by the number of people he saw at a veterans’ hospital with kidney cancer. “It’s one of the cancers that disproportionately affects military personnel, possibly due to environmental exposures,” he says. The results can be devastating. “On average, patients with kidney cancer lose 12 years […]
Tags: cancer, Cancer Research, Epigenetic research, Epigenomics, kidney cancer, Research
January 14, 2020
By Susan Murphy
A collaborative team of Mayo Clinic scientists is studying an innovative strategy for treating advanced cancer, using genomics and human tumor samples as their guide. The novel approach, called Ex Vivo, creates a miniature cancer replica for testing therapies outside a patient’s body, combined with a comprehensive genomic analysis of a patient’s cancer cells. “We […]
January 9, 2020
Mayo Clinic is creating a library of genomic sequencing data on 100,000 consented Mayo Clinic participants to advance research and patient care. “We believe that whole exome sequencing has the potential to reveal predispositions to health problems and enable earlier use of preventive measures throughout a person’s lifespan,” says Keith Stewart, M.B., Ch.B., Carlson and […]
December 30, 2019
In Florida, a powerhouse of cancer research
By Susan Murphy
By Sara Nick The Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, which spans Mayo Clinic’s Arizona, Florida and Minnesota locations, has 10 distinct research programs funded by the National Cancer Institute that are centered on broad areas such as immunology and gene therapy, or specific tumor types such as brain and gastrointestinal. Each research topic is treated with a multidisciplinary approach that ties together science, clinical relevance […]
Tags: #gastrointestinal cancer, cancer, Cancer Research, gene sequencing, immunology