WAKEFIELD, R.I., and ROCHESTER, Minn. — South County Health (SCH) and Mayo Clinic today announced SCH has become the first healthcare organization in Rhode Island to join the Mayo Clinic Care Network, a select group of independent healthcare organizations carefully vetted by Mayo Clinic and granted special access to Mayo Clinic's knowledge, expertise and resources.

The milestone represents a significant advancement for healthcare in Rhode Island and serves as a foundational step in South County Health's vision to create a new model for independent community healthcare — one that combines world-class clinical expertise, advanced digital capabilities, and local, patient-centered care. As part of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, South County Health healthcare professionals can quickly access Mayo Clinic's latest research, diagnostic and treatment recommendations whenever they feel it will benefit their patients.

"Today marks a defining moment for South County Health and the communities we serve," says Aaron Robinson, president and CEO of South County Health. "Becoming a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network brings together the best of both worlds: trusted local care and the knowledge, expertise, and resources of one of the world's leading healthcare organizations, while preserving the personalized, community-based care that has always been at the heart of South County Health."

South County Health healthcare professionals can consult Mayo Clinic expertise when they determine it would benefit a patient, at no additional cost to the patient. This can provide additional clinical input while supporting care close to home.  The Mayo Clinic Care Network membership expands the tools and expertise available to local clinicians, enhancing the high-quality care already available in the community and providing additional support for complex cases and specialized needs.

As a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, South County Health clinicians will have access to:

• AskMayoExpert – Provides trusted, expert information to help healthcare professionals find the right answers when they need them. Created and used by Mayo Clinic physicians, all the information in AskMayoExpert is regularly reviewed and represents the latest in Mayo Clinic's medical expertise.
• eConsults – Direct connections to Mayo Clinic specialists for complex cases.
• eBoards – Multidisciplinary case reviews with Mayo Clinic experts and other network members.
• Mayo Clinic Platform – Advanced digital and AI-enabled clinical tools.

"We are pleased to welcome South County Health into the Mayo Clinic Care Network," says Ryan Uitti, M.D., medical director, Mayo Clinic Platform. "Their commitment to quality, safety and patient-centered care aligns well with the values of the Mayo Clinic Care Network."

South County Health was selected to join the Mayo Clinic Care Network by demonstrating a commitment to quality and patient-centered care. Founded in 2011, the Mayo Clinic Care Network reached a 15-year milestone as a global community of more than 50 member organizations, representing 80 hospitals and nearly 20,000 physicians.

"For many independent health systems across the country, the traditional path to sustainability has required sacrificing independence to gain access to the resources, scale and expertise needed to compete in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape," Robinson adds. "We believe there is another path. This is about creating a model that improves administrative work and advances clinical care. That means a stronger local health system today and greater access to world-class healthcare for generations to come."

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About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news.

About Mayo Clinic Platform
Mayo Clinic Platform is a strategic initiative of Mayo Clinic that enables collaboration, data-driven innovation and responsible AI development to transform healthcare globally. Mayo Clinic Platform is reimagining healthcare as an ecosystem — one where data, digital solutions and expertise flow seamlessly between innovators and care teams to improve care for patients everywhere.

About South County Health
South County Health is an independent, nonprofit health system featuring a 100-bed community hospital (South County Hospital) along with six ambulatory locations across central and Rhode Island. With a commitment to clinical excellence, patient-centered care and community well-being, South County Health provides a full range of inpatient, outpatient and specialty services. South County Health is proud to be Rhode Island's Most Trusted Health Partner.

Media contacts:

• Matt Moeller, South County Health, mmoeller@southcountyhealth.org
• Caroline Auger, Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu

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Nursing staff bring distinct experience to healthcare innovation: firsthand experience with patient care, clinical workflows and the day-to-day realities of nursing practice. Mayo Clinic nursing staff recently gathered to bring together those perspectives and answer a question that extends beyond any one role or care setting: What could the future of nursing look like, and what will it take to get there? 

More than 110 nursing staff representing different roles, specialties and care settings across Mayo Clinic came together at Nursing Nexus, an annual Mayo Clinic forum that brings staff together to identify nursing practice challenges and explore potential solutions for nursing, by nursing. 

From navigating change to shaping it 

"Nursing staff are uniquely positioned to drive solutions to healthcare challenges. They're closest to the patient, and they understand that collaboration is essential to every part of our work," says Ryannon Frederick, chief nursing officer of Mayo Clinic. 

At the event, staff explored how to navigate and adapt to change, heard from fellow nursing innovators turning frontline ideas into real-world solutions, and considered how emerging technologies could reshape care delivery.  

Across roles and care settings, staff identified challenges they see in their work, generated more than 250 potential solutions, and worked together to evaluate and prioritize them.  

While teams approached the work from different perspectives, common needs emerged during ideation sessions. Their ideas centered on several key areas: 

• Providing patients with more personalized, accessible information about their care. 

• Strengthening continuity throughout the patient's care journey.  

• Optimizing staffing and workflows. 

• Reducing documentation burden for staff. 

• Embedding real-time clinical decision support and guidance in workflows. 

Teams advanced 16 recommendations for further consideration. Consistent with past years, those recommendations will help inform upcoming Mayo Clinic Department of Nursing strategic planning discussions, bringing staff expertise and firsthand experience into conversations about the future.

Moving ideas forward 

For nursing staff, producing ideas is only one part of shaping what comes next.  

The Department of Nursing AI Agent Competition, which drew more than 450 staff proposals earlier this year, provided a pathway for selected ideas to advance into testing and development for potential broader use. At Nursing Nexus, finalists presented solutions they developed in response to challenges they encountered in their work. One of the solutions aims to help complete leave and disability paperwork faster, reducing administrative work for care teams and potentially shortening waits for patients who need forms and approvals. 

"When nursing staff bring a desire to be part of the solution and raise their hands because they want to make things better, it's our responsibility to meet them with the connections, resources and pathways that can help move their ideas forward," says Frederick. 

Together, these efforts offer tangible examples of what the future of healthcare could look like when those closest to the work take an active role in building it.

Learn more about nursing at Mayo Clinic.

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic announces a generous gift from the Penske Foundation to support Bold. Forward. Unbound. in Rochester, part of Mayo Clinic’s $10 billion investment to transform healthcare through integrated digital and physical spaces. 

In recognition of this gift, Mayo Clinic will name the Penske Arrival Building, a new gateway to Mayo Clinic's downtown Rochester campus designed to provide patients and families with a warm, welcoming and seamless experience from the moment they arrive.

Recognizing that a patient's care experience begins well before they reach an exam room, Mayo Clinic designed the building to make arrival and departure an extension of care — integrating transportation, navigation, hospitality and human support to reduce logistical burdens so patients and families can focus on their health and one another. 

The Penske Foundation's leadership reflects a long-standing commitment to philanthropic and civic investment. That legacy of service is reflected in its relationship with Mayo Clinic, where its generosity has helped advance and strengthen patient care.

"The Penske Foundation is proud to support Mayo Clinic and its vision for transforming the patient experience. The Penske Arrival Building represents an important part of that vision by making the arrival experience easier and more welcoming for patients and their families," says Blair Penske Hall, president of the Penske Foundation. "We are honored to continue our long-standing partnership with Mayo Clinic and support its commitment to putting patients at the center of everything it does."

The Penske Foundation's support advances Bold. Forward. Unbound, Mayo Clinic's investment to create a fundamentally new model for how care is delivered and experienced. Through innovative care concepts, digital technologies and purpose-built environments like the Penske Arrival Building, Mayo Clinic is creating a Category-of-One experience that is designed around the needs of each patient and visitor.

The building will feature approximately 15,000 square feet of thoughtfully designed interior space, advanced valet services, patient and visitor amenities, and a direct subway connection to Mayo Clinic's established and new clinical buildings.

The Penske Arrival Building will begin welcoming patients with valet and drop-off service on Oct. 8. Parking will become available in April 2027, providing nearly 500 parking spaces for patients at the heart of Mayo Clinic in Rochester's downtown campus.

"The needs of the patient come first in everything we do," says Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., Mayo Clinic's president and CEO. "The Penske Arrival Building will bring parking, transportation, navigation and personal support together in one place and make it easier for patients and families to begin and end their time at Mayo Clinic. It is a fitting reflection of the Penske Foundation's commitment to service, and we are truly grateful for their enduring partnership."

The Penske Foundation's past philanthropic support for Mayo Clinic has accelerated the institution's top priorities through the President's Strategic Initiative Fund and advanced the Mayo Clinic Model of Care, Research and Education. The Penske Foundation is recognized by Mayo Clinic as a Philanthropic Partner, its highest level of distinction for benefactors.

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About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news.

Media contact:

• Terri Malloy, Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu

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Watch: the Mayo Clinic Minute

Journalists: Broadcast-quality video (1:09) is in the downloads at the end of this post. Please courtesy: "Mayo Clinic News Network." Read the script.

Unlike many cancers that form solid tumors, leukemia is a cancer of the blood-forming cells in the bone marrow.

Dr. Arana Yi says, "Leukemia affects the production of the blood cells and can circulate through all the body from the beginning." 

Leukemia isn't a single disease. There are several types that can behave differently. According to Dr. Arana Yi, "It is a group of cancers with different subtypes. Some develop very quickly, while others progress slowly." 

Leukemia can affect people of all ages. Symptoms can include persistent fatigue, unusual bruising or bleeding, frequent infections, fever, night sweats, unexplained weight loss and shortness of breath. 

"If those are persistent, it is important to review and be evaluated by a doctor for a possibility of a blood count checkup," Dr. Arana Yi mentions. 

Research is helping doctors identify genetic changes that may be driving a patient's leukemia. That information can help guide treatment. 

Dr. Arana Yi says, "This allows us to use targeted medicines, immune-based therapies, sometimes with less traditional chemotherapy or chemo-free regimen." 

Recognizing possible symptoms and seeking medical evaluation can help doctors diagnose leukemia and determine appropriate treatment. 

"Recognizing symptoms since the beginning, and early evaluation with the doctors is key to diagnose the acute leukemia as soon as possible," Dr. Arana Yi concludes. 

The post Mayo Clinic Minute: Leukemia isn’t like other cancers (VIDEO) appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

Helix to generate clinical whole genome sequencing and multi-omics data from one million biospecimens, advancing precision medicine as the standard of care

ROCHESTER, Minn. and SAN MATEO, Calif. — Precure, LLC today announced the selection of Helix as its multi-omic laboratory and AI tools provider supporting plans to generate comprehensive molecular data from approximately one million biospecimens and accelerate the integration of molecular insights into routine clinical care at Mayo Clinic and across health systems more broadly.

Less than a week ago, Mayo Clinic announced the launch of Precure, LLC, with founding partner Thermo Fisher Scientific, to help transform how the life sciences community understands the biological changes that occur as disease develops before symptoms occur. Precure, LLC brings together clinical expertise, de-identified longitudinal health information and population-scale molecular data to accelerate the development of new approaches to care.

Helix will provide both advanced AI tools for delivery of genomics into the clinic and biomarker driven research, and population scale multi-omic capability that encompasses clinical whole genome sequencing (WGS) and research grade proteome sequencing. Linked with longitudinal clinical information and high performance compute infrastructure, the objective is to create new opportunities for prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

“Our goal is to generate genomic information that can help inform patient care while creating a powerful resource for discovery,” said Aaron Mangold, M.D., chief medical officer, Precure, LLC. “We are working to make clinical whole genome sequencing and multi-omics a foundation of care, helping us detect disease sooner and act earlier.”

Building on prior work which utilized Helix’s Exome+ ^® sequencing technology, Precure, LLC extends that collaboration by leveraging Helix's experience providing workflow orchestration, (CLIA/CAP) genomic sequencing, data infrastructure, and AI tools to its health system partners. Precure, LLC and Helix have selected Ultima Genomics’ UG200™ Ultra Sequencing Platform as part of the program’s large-scale multi-omics initiative. Helix will use a fleet of Ultima’s next-generation platforms to generate high-quality genomic data for WGS and read-out for proteomics at scale.

“The genome is becoming an enduring patient resource, providing a precision baseline for a lifetime of care,” said James Lu, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of Helix. “Helix brings together the laboratory and data capabilities to make this possible at scale.”

Mayo Clinic's involvement in Precure, LLC is intended to advance its nonprofit mission. Any financial returns to Mayo Clinic would be reinvested in its mission of patient care, research and education. Visit mayo.edu/research/precure for more information.

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About Precure, LLC
Precure, LLC is a Mayo Clinic-controlled company established to generate and responsibly integrate population-scale molecular data with longitudinal clinical information. Precure, LLC creates the infrastructure and scale needed to enable external collaborations, disease-focused discovery and the development of new diagnostics, therapeutics and other healthcare solutions. It complements Mayo Clinic’s investigator-led research and clinical translation activities.

About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news.  

About Helix
Helix is an enterprise genomics company connecting clinical care and discovery. Its platform brings together clinical sequencing, integration of genomic information into healthcare, and research tools built on linked genomic and longitudinal clinical data. Through its health system partnerships, the Helix Research Network and GenoSphere, Helix helps healthcare and life sciences organizations apply genomics to patient care and the development of new diagnostics and treatments. Learn more at www.helix.com.

Media contacts:

• Tom Millikin, Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu
• Caty Reid, Helix, helix@highwirepr.com

The post Precure, LLC selects Helix as multi-omics lab and AI tools provider appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

After being diagnosed with high-risk acute myeloid leukemia at age 19, Sky Toyne came to Mayo Clinic for a potentially curative stem cell transplant. Thanks to advances in transplant medicine, a lifesaving donation from her brother, and comprehensive care that addressed both her physical and emotional recovery, Sky overcame leukemia and returned to the life she loves.  

In August 2021, Sky Toyne had just begun her sophomore year of college at a university in Iowa, where she was born and raised. With a love of learning and being active in organizations, she was excitedly thinking about her next semester. Should she run for an executive position in her sorority or study abroad in Australia?  

Soon after the fall semester began, Sky started getting bad headaches. As the weeks went on, she experienced more symptoms — frequent colds, extreme neck aches and fatigue.   

On Oct. 7, Sky woke with intense head and neck pain and a whooshing sound in her ears. Her mom drove her to the student health facility, where initial tests were inconclusive. Bloodwork, however, revealed dangerously low blood counts, and Sky went to the hospital immediately. 

After receiving blood transfusions in the emergency department, Sky was admitted to the oncology floor. A bone marrow biopsy the next morning confirmed leukemia.  

Further testing showed that Sky had acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and she had several mutations that put her at high risk of recurrence. To give her the best chance at a cure, she would need a bone marrow, or stem cell transplant.  

"I decided to go to Mayo Clinic since it's the best hospital in the world and a leader in transplant," says Sky.  

She completed induction chemotherapy at the hospital in Iowa and traveled with her parents to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to meet Dr. William Hogan, a transplant hematologist. 

"His expertise was astounding, and we immediately knew I was in good hands," says Sky.  

Hope through innovation 

"Sky's leukemia carried genetic abnormalities that we know place patients at much higher risk of relapse if treated with chemotherapy alone," says Dr. Hogan. "Fortunately, she had responded very well to her initial treatment and achieved a deep remission, which gave us an important opportunity to move toward a potentially curative stem cell transplant." 

Stem cell donor matching depends on inherited immune system genes called human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes. People with mixed ancestry, like Sky, often inherit combinations of HLA genes that are less commonly represented in donor registries, which means there may be fewer unrelated volunteers who share that exact genetic combination. 

Because a perfectly matched unrelated donor wasn't readily available, Sky required a haploidentical, or half-matched, bone marrow transplant. Unlike a traditional transplant, a haploidentical transplant uses a donor who shares approximately half of the patient's immune system genes — usually a parent, child or sibling.  

"This has probably been one of the biggest advances in transplantation over the past two decades, allowing nearly every patient to have a potential donor," says Dr. Hogan. 

Sky's brother, Speed, agreed to be her donor.  

"I will admit that I was nervous about the donation procedure, but the decision to be the donor was an easy one," says Speed. "It was simply what needed to be done to give my sister a chance." 

The therapies Sky would receive could permanently affect reproductive function. Her care team worked closely with reproductive endocrinology colleagues so she could undergo egg retrieval before transplant.  

"Our goal is never simply to cure leukemia — it's to help patients return to meaningful, fulfilling lives," says Dr. Hogan. "We needed to consider her long-term quality of life, including her fertility, education, career goals, emotional well-being and the many decades of life that hopefully lie ahead after treatment. Those conversations were just as important as the medical treatment itself." 

On Feb. 25, 2022, Sky received the transplant and celebrated her "rebirthday." As the months progressed, Sky was recovering physically, but she began struggling mentally.  

"Transplant recovery is not just a physical process. That's why psychological support is an essential part of transplant care, not an afterthought," says Dr. Hogan. 

Honoring her past and embracing the future 

"The nurses and physician assistants were amazing. They would give me pep talks," says Sky. "A nurse who also had leukemia when she was younger suggested the idea to hold a ceremony for my past self."  

Sky, who had lost her hair, bought a wig, and the nurse made her a flower crown. With her care team and loved ones in attendance, people wrote and read eulogies, and then she did the same, saying goodbye to her past self. 

"It was so meaningful that my care team did that for me, and it really helped me get over my mental block," says Sky. "What I appreciated most about Mayo Clinic was its holistic approach. They cared for my mental health just as much as my physical health, which helped me have the best possible outcome. I felt seen by every staff member, many of whom became like family." 

On her 100^th day post-transplant, Sky rang a bell to celebrate her semipermanent remission. She's hoping to ring the bell again on her five-year transplant anniversary on Feb. 25, 2027, to signify permanent remission.  

"Transplantation is never something a patient accomplishes alone. It requires extraordinary courage from the patient, incredible support from family and the coordinated efforts of a large multidisciplinary team," says Dr. Hogan. 

Life beyond leukemia 

Sky returned to school full time, served in an executive position in her sorority and was a leader in many other campus organizations. Since she continued her classes part time during treatment, she was able to graduate from college on time in May 2024. 

Now 24, Sky earned a master's degree, ran her first half-marathon in March and enjoys traveling around the country.  

"Because of advances in molecular diagnostics, targeted therapies, donor selection, transplant techniques and supportive care, she has returned to an active, healthy life," says Dr. Hogan. "Seeing someone like Sky thriving years later is deeply rewarding for everyone involved and reminds us why these advances matter." 

The post Life beyond leukemia: How innovation and compassion helped Sky reclaim her future  appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

Pioneering initiative will generate data at the frontier of healthcare to help transform early biological signals into new opportunities for prevention, diagnosis and treatment

ROCHESTER, Minn. and WALTHAM, Mass. — Mayo Clinic today announced the launch of Precure, LLC, with founding partner Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, to help transform how the life sciences community understands the biological changes that occur as people move from health toward disease.

Precure, LLC will create one of the world’s leading biomedical datasets through one of the largest human multi-omics data-generation efforts, integrating proteomic, genomic and longitudinal clinical data to help researchers identify early biological signals of disease and provide a foundation for new discoveries in disease biology, diagnostics and therapeutics.

Many diseases begin developing biologically years before symptoms lead to a clinical diagnosis. By connecting molecular and clinical data over time, Precure, LLC has the potential to help researchers better understand these early changes, accelerate drug development and create new opportunities for earlier diagnosis, intervention and more personalized care across a wide range of diseases, such as cancer, cardiometabolic disease, neurological disorders and immune-mediated disease.

Precure, LLC will bring together molecular data generated from one million biospecimens, linked with longitudinal clinical information collected over several years, integrating genomic and proteomic information with Mayo Clinic’s clinical data and expertise in a highly standardized setting. Advanced AI and large-scale data-analytics will be integral to identifying patterns within these complex datasets and translating them into actionable insights. Mayo Clinic will serve as the majority owner of Precure, LLC. Thermo Fisher joins the partnership as a minority owner.

"At Mayo Clinic, we are committed to transforming patient care through innovation," says Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., president and CEO, Mayo Clinic. "By harnessing the full potential of multi-omics data, Precure, LLC aims to help us better understand disease before symptoms appear, accelerating discoveries that can lead to earlier diagnoses, more targeted treatments and better outcomes for patients."

Together, the organizations contribute complementary expertise designed to generate the molecular and clinical data needed to accelerate discovery and translate new insights into advancements in patient care:

• Mayo Clinic combines world-class clinical and research leadership with advanced AI and data science capabilities, extensive biospecimens and longitudinal de-identified clinical data to accelerate discovery and translate insights into advances for patients.
• Thermo Fisher brings industry-leading proteomics expertise and solutions, including its cutting-edge proteomics platform, Olink™ Explore HT, and Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry, kits and reagents to help build Precure, LLC’s multi-omics ecosystem.

“Precure LLC has the potential to create a step change in how we generate and apply multi-omics data to improve human health,” said Marc Casper, Chairman and CEO, Thermo Fisher Scientific. “By combining Thermo Fisher’s leadership in scientific technology with Mayo Clinic’s leadership in clinical care, research and innovation, we can create new opportunities at unprecedented scale to detect disease earlier, accelerate drug development and enable more precise therapies.”

Precure, LLC complements Precure Research, Mayo Clinic’s investigator-led scientific effort to understand the biological changes that occur as people move from health toward disease. Precure Research advances the science of identifying and understanding early disease signals, while Precure, LLC provides the scale, infrastructure and collaborations needed to generate population-scale molecular data and help translate discoveries into new diagnostics, therapeutics and other healthcare solutions. Mayo Clinic provides the pathway to validate discoveries and ultimately brings meaningful advances into patient care.

Mayo Clinic's involvement in Precure, LLC is intended to advance its nonprofit mission. Any financial returns to Mayo Clinic would be reinvested in its mission of patient care, research and education.

Visit mayo.edu/research/precure for more information.

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About Precure, LLC
Precure, LLC is a Mayo Clinic-controlled company established to generate and responsibly integrate population-scale molecular data with longitudinal clinical information. Precure, LLC creates the infrastructure and scale needed to enable external collaborations, disease-focused discovery and the development of new diagnostics, therapeutics and other healthcare solutions. It complements Mayo Clinic’s investigator-led research and clinical translation activities.

About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news.  

About Thermo Fisher Scientific 
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with annual revenue over $45 billion. Our Mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. Whether our customers are accelerating life sciences research, solving complex analytical challenges, increasing productivity in their laboratories, improving patient health through diagnostics or the development and manufacture of life-changing therapies, we are here to support them. Our global team delivers an unrivaled combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and pharmaceutical services through our industry-leading brands, including Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Gibco, Fisher Scientific, Unity Lab Services, Patheon and PPD. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com. 

Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements relating to Thermo Fisher Scientific, Mayo Clinic, and Precure, LLC and its ambitions and potential impact. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. A discussion of these and other risks related to Thermo Fisher Scientific are contained in its most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q under “Risk Factors,” available in the “Investors” section of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s website under “SEC Filings.” These statements speak only as of the date of this press release, and all parties disclaim any obligation to update them, except as required by law.

Media contacts:  

• Tom Millikin, Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu
• Jodie Wertheim, Thermo Fisher Scientific, jodie.wertheim@thermofisher.com

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic announced today that its Mayo Clinic Care Network reached a 15-year milestone as a global community of more than 50 member organizations, representing 80 hospitals and nearly 20,000 physicians.

Created in 2011, the Mayo Clinic Care Network includes carefully selected independent organizations worldwide committed to enhancing the quality of healthcare to advance patient care. Members have access to Mayo Clinic's clinical knowledge and specialists while continuing to serve patients in their local communities. Altru Health System in Grand Forks, North Dakota, was the first member to join the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

"For the past 15 years, the Mayo Clinic Care Network has brought together like-minded organizations to solve complex medical challenges and advance patient care," says Christine C. Johnson, associate vice president, Mayo Clinic Care Network. "By sharing knowledge and expertise, we can strengthen what each organization delivers locally and help more patients benefit from high-quality care, wherever they are."

The Mayo Clinic Care Network began as a new way for member organizations to access Mayo Clinic's expertise and to connect as a network of peers. Over time, that relationship has expanded to support needs across clinical care, education, operations, leadership, and innovation.

With the launch of Mayo Clinic Platform in 2019, Care Network members gained additional opportunities to engage with data-driven innovation and emerging technologies designed to support the evolving needs of their organizations and communities.

Some of the impact over the past 15 years includes:

• 63,545 eConsults from members to Mayo Clinic experts on complex diagnoses, treatment plans, and other clinical questions.
• 1,283 inpatient telephone consults supporting care at the bedside.
• 1,720 eBoards, or live, interactive conferences on complex cases.
• 292 affinity group meetings, both virtual and in-person, connecting colleagues across specialties, roles, and geographies.
• 121,520 Health Care Consulting hours supporting local organizational priorities.

"Being the first member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network was an important milestone for Altru and the patients and communities we serve," says Josh Deere, M.D., president of Altru.

"For 15 years, this relationship has allowed us to remain rooted in our community while connecting our physicians and teams with Mayo Clinic expertise and colleagues around the world. That combination of local care and shared expertise is incredibly valuable, and we are proud of the difference this longstanding relationship has made for our patients and our region."

To learn more about how members have successfully used Mayo Clinic's solutions and services for the benefit of patient care, visit Mayo Clinic Care Network.

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About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news.

Media contact:

• Caroline Auger, Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu

The post Mayo Clinic Care Network marks 15-year milestone as a global community of member organizations to advance healthcare appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

Mayo Clinic researchers are combining biological, environmental and health data with artificial intelligence to identify changes that may signal disease years before clinical symptoms appear 

By the time doctors diagnose Alzheimer's disease, heart failure or cancer, the biological processes behind the illness may have been unfolding silently for years or even decades. 

Mayo Clinic wants to make those invisible years a new target for medicine. 

The healthcare organization is undertaking a sweeping research effort, called Precure Research, to identify the molecular and physiological changes that occur as people move from health toward disease and determine whether doctors can intervene before patients develop clinical symptoms. 

Precure Research initially focuses on diseases of the brain, heart, kidneys, liver and lungs. It brings together genetic information, biological specimens, medical records, environmental exposures, wearable-device data and artificial intelligence (AI). 

The goal is simple: Identify the early stages of disease sooner to improve outcomes. 

Achieving that goal requires answering hard questions. Among the countless biological changes that occur throughout a person's life, which ones reliably signal that disease is beginning, and which can doctors safely do something about? 

Mayo researchers say recent advances are beginning to make that challenge more solvable. 

In one large genetic study, Mayo scientists identified inherited risks for cancer and cardiovascular disease in nearly 2,000 participants, many of whom had no previous indication that they carried the risks. Other Mayo research has found certain precancerous changes that can be detected years before cancer develops. In Alzheimer's disease, scientists increasingly can measure biological changes that begin decades before memory problems become apparent. 

Taken together, those efforts point toward one of medicine’s biggest and transformational ambitions: shifting healthcare from treating established disease to predicting and preventing it. 

Vijay Shah, M.D., Mayo Clinic's Kinney executive dean of research, sees that shift as an extension of Mayo's longstanding approach to medical research: start with an unmet need of the patient, create the knowledge necessary to address it and bring the resulting discoveries back into clinical care. 

"At Mayo Clinic, our research and practice are intertwined," said Dr. Shah. "Everything we do must serve our primary value of putting the needs of the patient first." 

Heidi Dieter, Mayo Clinic's chief research administrator, said the change could ultimately alter the relationship between patients and the healthcare system itself. "We're not just treating disease anymore. We're partnering with people throughout their entire life journey," she said. 

The invisible years 

Doctors have traditionally encountered disease relatively late in its biological history. A tumor becomes visible on a scan. Kidney function declines. A patient develops symptoms of heart failure. Memory problems become noticeable. 

But disease does not begin at that clinical diagnosis. 

Before symptoms emerge, proteins can shift, metabolism can change, immune responses can evolve and environmental exposures can leave measurable biological traces. 

Precure researchers want to reconstruct that progression. 

The initiative combines information from genes, proteins, metabolites and immune signals with longitudinal medical records, environmental information and wearable devices. The approach allows researchers to examine different layers of biology together and how they change over time. 

A person might carry a genetic variant associated with higher disease risk for a lifetime without developing the condition. Researchers hope to understand what happens between inherited susceptibility and actual illness and identify when that trajectory might change. 

But finding a biological signal associated with disease isn't the same as developing a useful screening test. Researchers look for biological signals to develop screening tests that can help physicians intervene early, often when a condition is more easily and effectively treated.  

Looking beyond DNA 

Mayo's approach also extends beyond what is happening physiologically inside the body. 

Researchers are looking beyond genetics and incorporating the exposome, the accumulation of environmental and lifestyle exposures over a person's lifetime and the biological effects they produce. 

Those influences can range from diet, exercise and sleep to pollutants, chemicals and air quality. Researchers increasingly can detect biological traces of some exposures in blood and other specimens and connect them with genetics, clinical histories and geographic information. 

Pilot studies are examining questions including whether long-term air-pollution exposure affects solid-organ transplant outcomes and whether environmental chemicals influence how the body processes medications. Another is testing saliva-based biosensors for biological changes associated with triggers of head and neck cancers. 

Building a biological time machine 

Pulling those pieces together requires infrastructure on a scale that would have been impractical not long ago. 

Mayo says Precure Research ultimately aims to create its largest integrated collection of biological specimens and scientific and health information through Mayo Clinic Platform, connecting what is found in a blood or tissue specimen with molecular measurements, environmental exposures and years of clinical history. 

In effect, researchers want to reconstruct how a patient's biology arrived at a particular disease. 

Precure Research connects molecular information with deep, longitudinal clinical context and Mayo Clinic expertise through existing pathways and infrastructure, such as Digital Pathology, Mayo Clinic Platform and Research Data Atlas, to support research across diseases and data types. The resulting resources are intended to support discovery and translation, including research into biomarkers, diagnostics, therapeutics, clinical trial strategies and new clinical tools. 

AI is central to the strategy because the number of possible relationships quickly exceeds what researchers can examine manually. AI systems can search across genetic variants, proteins, medical records, imaging, environmental measurements and wearable-device readings for patterns that conventional analysis might miss. 

Mayo Clinic is building a research foundation designed to support discovery across diseases, not one study at a time. Connecting clinical information, biospecimens and molecular data at scale can reveal biological relationships that would otherwise remain hidden, allowing an insight from one disease to inform the understanding, prediction or treatment of another. 

A historic institution looks to medicine’s future 

Mayo Clinic is positioned to pursue an ambition as large as Precure Research in part because transforming how medicine is practiced is embedded in its history. 

For more than 160 years, Mayo Clinic has sought fundamentally better ways to care for patients. Its development of the group practice of medicine brought physicians with different specialties together around the needs of an individual patient. Its adoption of a longitudinal medical record gave those physicians something medicine once lacked: data to allow the ability to understand a patient's health not simply at a moment in time, but across years. 

Those innovations changed more than the tools available to physicians. They helped change how medical care was delivered. 

Precure Research is Mayo's next step to extend that history and culture of transformation into a new era. 

The difference is the resolution.

Where a longitudinal clinical record allowed physicians to see a patient's medical history across years, Precure researchers hope to observe the biological history occurring beneath it. 

That ambition also rests on another part of Mayo’s history: patients participating in research. 

Patients who contribute clinical information and biological specimens help researchers identify patterns that no individual patient or physician could reveal alone. Their contributions can help researchers generate knowledge that could lead to better ways to predict, prevent and treat disease, with the potential to benefit patients at Mayo Clinic and beyond. 

By contributing information and specimens over time, patients can help researchers better understand the progression from health to disease and explore opportunities to preserve health for themselves, their families and for future generations. 

From predicting disease to preventing it 

The long-term ambition extends beyond early diagnosis. 

Precure Research will allow for the study of biological processes including inflammation, aging and metabolic dysfunction that cut across diseases traditionally treated by different medical specialties. 

A patient eventually diagnosed with heart failure, kidney disease or dementia might share some underlying biological pathways years earlier. Identifying those mechanisms could give doctors opportunities to intervene before irreversible damage occurs. 

Mayo describes the ultimate objective as extending healthspan, which is the portion of a person's life spent in good health and without significant chronic disease or disability. 

That means identifying not just who is likely to develop a disease, but also when risk becomes actionable and which intervention can alter the trajectory. 

Precure Research is built on the premise that the next major advance in medicine may not come from a single new drug, device or technology, but from understanding human health in ways that avoid disease all together.

The post Can disease be identified before symptoms begin? Mayo Clinic researchers are looking for answers appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic Platform today announced that its Accelerate program for healthcare technology companies is now available through a multiyear engagement pathway. The inaugural participants of the multiyear track include 12 companies developing artificial intelligence (AI)-powered solutions to enhance care delivery and healthcare operations.

"The Accelerate program was intentionally designed to support digital health companies ready to transform healthcare," says Jamie Sundsbak, director of the Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate program." As participation continues to grow, the program has evolved to support solutions developers through multiple pathways tailored to their different stages of development."

The multiyear pathway is designed for select companies seeking sustained access to Mayo Clinic Platform's discovery environment, data, technology and expertise. Through an extended engagement, participants can work alongside Mayo Clinic Platform's experts and leverage its de-identified clinical data ecosystem to advance the development and validation of their digital health solutions.

The 12 companies selected as the first participants in the multiyear pathway are developing AI-enabled solutions that leverage clinical data and advanced analytics to transform healthcare.

• Cappsule is an AI-enabled ambient monitoring platform designed to support clinical decision-making through continuous, real-world data capture.
• CerebraAI develops AI-powered software as a medical device that aims to upgrade the diagnostic capability of noncontrast computed tomography imaging, bringing it closer to MRI standards.
• Clair Health is building a women's health intelligence platform grounded in continuous, direct hormone data.
• Durotimi AI is a pioneering healthcare technology company dedicated to transforming cancer care through advanced, localized AI.
• Electrokare is building AI infrastructure for continuous biological intelligence — turning today's snapshot healthcare system into continuous measurement.
• Floe Health is a clinical reasoning engine for hospital case management.
• Koroid is an AI-native operating system for healthcare operations.
• MedLink Global is pioneering AI-powered solutions to transform psychiatric care.
• OPTT Health is a clinically led AI platform for scalable mental healthcare.
• PONS aims to make ultrasound accessible to the mass market by addressing the limitations of high-resolution images in the early stages of disease.
• Radical Health offers a patient-facing second opinion service that allows patients to receive personalized treatment recommendations.
• Respiree is an AI/machine learning health tech company building state-of-the-art, clinically-validated AI for managing disease progression across healthcare's care continuum.

Since its launch in 2022, Accelerate has supported more than 130 companies from around the world. To learn more about the program or to apply for an upcoming cohort, visit Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate.

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About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news.

About Mayo Clinic Platform
Mayo Clinic Platform is a strategic initiative of Mayo Clinic that enables collaboration, data-driven innovation and responsible AI development to transform healthcare globally. Mayo Clinic Platform is reimagining healthcare as an ecosystem — one where data, digital solutions and expertise flow seamlessly between innovators and care teams to improve care for patients everywhere.

Media contact:

• Caroline Auger, Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu

The post Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate announces inaugural participants of its new multiyear pathway program appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.