ROCHESTER, Minn. — A large prospective study published today in Nature Medicine found that a blood test designed to detect multiple cancers identified cancer signals across 17 broad cancer types, such as ovarian, lung, breast and colorectal cancers, and many which do not have recommended screening tests.

Mayo Clinic was among the institutions participating in the prospective, interventional study, which enrolled 35,878 adults age 50 and older. Karthik Giridhar, M.D., a Mayo Clinic medical oncologist, was a study investigator and senior author.

The multicancer early detection (MCED) test analyzes small fragments of DNA that cells release into the bloodstream. Researchers use patterns in these fragments to detect signals associated with cancer. When a cancer signal is detected, the test also predicts the likely location of the cancer to help physicians determine appropriate follow-up testing.

Among 32,007 participants included in the study's performance analysis, 287 had a positive MCED test result. Cancer was diagnosed in 173 of those participants. The test had a positive predictive value of 60.3% and specificity of 99.64%. Among participants with a true-positive result, the test correctly predicted one of the two most likely cancer signal origins in 91.3% of cases.

"One of the challenges in cancer screening is that most cancers do not have an established screening test," says Dr. Giridhar. "This study helps us better understand how a multicancer blood test might complement existing screening approaches by identifying cancer signals that otherwise may not be detected through routine screening."

Researchers found that 72.8% of cancers detected by the MCED test were cancer types without U.S. Preventive Services Task Force grade A or B screening recommendations. Among the 151 participants with at least one newly diagnosed primary cancer detected by the test, 53% had stage 1 or 2 disease and 70.9% had stage 1, 2 or 3 disease.

Giridhar also notes that these tests are not yet a substitute for established cancer screenings. Instead, they may supplement existing screening approaches and help expand understanding of cancer detection.

PATHFINDER 2 was a single-arm study, and its endpoints were descriptive, with no comparator group or formal hypothesis testing. The authors say randomized trials and further follow-up are needed to determine the clinical utility of MCED testing in routine clinical practice. The study also used an earlier version of the test that has since been replaced by a commercially available version.

The study was designed and funded by GRAIL Inc., which also participated in data analysis and interpretation and preparation of the manuscript. Dr. Giridhar reports consulting and advisory relationships with GRAIL and other organizations and travel expenses from GRAIL. A complete list of author disclosures is included in the published study.

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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:

• Julie Ferris-Tillman, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu

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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

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic researchers have identified a strategy that could help chimeric antigen receptor-T cell therapy, or CAR-T cell therapy, overcome a major barrier to treating solid tumors: Cancer cells can change in ways that allow them to hide from immune cells designed to attack them.

In a preclinical study published in Molecular Cancer, researchers found that drugs used to treat advanced thyroid cancer can restore a marker on aggressive thyroid cancer cells, making the cancer visible again to specially engineered CAR-T cells. Combining the drugs with CAR-T cell therapy resulted in better tumor control and survival in preclinical models than either approach alone.

Rather than further modifying CAR-T cells to recognize cancers that have lost their targets, researchers sought to change the tumor so the target reappears.

"We often think about engineering the immune cell to overcome resistance," says co-senior author Saad Kenderian, M.B., Ch.B., a hematologist and oncologist at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. "This work shows another possibility."

Making an aggressive cancer visible again

CAR-T cell therapy engineers T cells — immune cells that help protect the body from disease — to recognize a specific target, or antigen, on cancer cells. The approach has transformed treatment for some blood cancers but has been less successful against solid tumors.

One reason is that solid tumors can lose or reduce the antigens CAR-T cells are designed to recognize, making it more difficult for the engineered cells to identify and destroy the cancer.

The Mayo Clinic team focused on the thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR), a protein found primarily on thyroid cells. CAR-T cells targeting this receptor showed strong antitumor activity against thyroid cancers with high TSHR levels. Their effectiveness was more limited against anaplastic thyroid cancer, the most aggressive form of the disease with low or no TSHR expression.

Turning the target back on

Researchers investigated whether they could restore TSHR through a process known as redifferentiation, in which aggressive cancer cells regain some of the biological features they had lost.

They used drugs that inhibit the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway, including trametinib and dabrafenib, which are approved to treat advanced thyroid cancer.

In patient-derived models of anaplastic thyroid cancer, MAPK inhibition increased TSHR expression on tumor cells. When researchers combined the drugs with TSHR-targeted CAR-T cells, the combination produced stronger tumor control and survival than either treatment alone.

"One of the key discoveries from our work is that antigen density matters. We showed that restoring TSHR expression with combination therapy can sensitize aggressive thyroid tumors to CAR-T cell attack, effectively turning a suboptimal target into a more vulnerable one. This approach may provide a new framework for enhancing CAR-T therapies across solid tumors where target expression is limited," says co-first author Claudia Manriquez Roman, Ph.D., process development engineer at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

Researchers also found that the MAPK inhibitors did not appear to interfere with the CAR-T cells' ability to multiply or attack cancer cells. Instead, the drugs created a temporary window in which  the CAR-T cells could target cancer cells that had previously escaped detection.

TSHR expression declined after MAPK inhibitor treatment stopped, but two weeks of concurrent treatment was sufficient to improve CAR-T cell activity in the preclinical models.

"What’s exciting about this approach is that we're taking advantage of the cancer cell's own biology to restore TSHR expression by blocking MAPK signaling with molecular targeted drugs," says co-senior author John Copland III, Ph.D., cancer biologist and translational researcher at Mayo Clinic in Florida. Dr. Copland noted that approximately 2,500 Americans die per year from metastatic thyroid cancer disease. 

A potential strategy beyond thyroid cancer

Although the study focused on thyroid cancer, the concept could have implications for other solid tumors where treatments use immune therapy that targets similar surface markers.

Researchers are completing studies needed to support phase 1 clinical trial testing of TSHR-targeted CAR-T cells. The therapy could be studied alone in patients whose tumors continue to express TSHR or in combination with MAPK inhibitors in patients whose tumors have lost TSHR expression.

The researchers hope the approach ultimately could lead to another treatment option for patients with cancers that no longer respond to available therapies.  

For a complete list of authors, disclosures and funding, read the study.

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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:

• Julie Ferris-Tillman, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu

The post Study shows reprogramming thyroid tumors may improve CAR-T cell therapy appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: My older sister was recently diagnosed with thickened heart muscle, and her doctor recommended a procedure called a "septal myectomy." I’ve never heard of it before. What does this surgery do, and how do doctors know when it's the right treatment? 

ANSWER: Hearing that someone you love may need heart surgery can be scary, especially when you're also trying to understand an unfamiliar heart condition. Treatment usually starts with medication. However, for some people, surgery becomes the best option when symptoms continue despite medical therapy.  

Your sister's condition is called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM. It's a relatively common genetic condition that affects about 1 in 500 people. It causes the heart muscle to become abnormally thick, most often in the wall between the heart's two main pumping chambers. As a result, the normal pathway where blood leaves the heart can become blocked. 

HCM can affect the heart in two ways. The muscle may become obstructive from the thickening, or it may become stiff. Both forms can cause symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pain, fatigue, low energy and reduced endurance. The obstructive form caused by the thickened heart muscle is the one that surgery can often correct. Most people with HCM have this type, which is why septal myectomy can be an effective treatment for appropriately selected patients. 

Doctors usually diagnose HCM with an echocardiogram, an ultrasound that lets them see the heart and measure the thickness of the heart muscle. Because HCM is a genetic disease, blood tests can identify some genetic mutations. However, not every mutation can be detected with a blood test, so imaging remains the primary way doctors diagnose the condition. 

Treatment

Treatment usually begins with medications such as beta blockers, calcium channel blockers and newer medicines called myosin inhibitors to help manage symptoms. Surgery is rarely the first treatment that is recommended. Instead, it is considered when symptoms continue despite medication or when patients are not able to tolerate their medical therapy. That's why deciding whether surgery is the right treatment depends not only on the diagnosis but also on how well symptoms respond to medication. A cardiologist experienced in treating HCM can help determine when it's time to consider surgery or another form of septal reduction therapy called alcohol septal ablation. During this procedure, a small amount of alcohol is delivered through a catheter to shrink a portion of the thickened heart muscle and improve blood flow. In general, this procedure is reserved for patients who cannot undergo surgery. 

A septal myectomy is an open-heart operation that removes the portion of thickened heart muscle blocking blood flow. During the procedure, echocardiographic imaging helps surgeons identify where the muscle is thickened. Afterward, imaging confirms that blood flow out of the heart and the function of the heart valves have returned to normal. 

Like any heart operation, septal myectomy has risks. When it's performed at a center with expertise in this procedure by an experienced surgeon, the risk of death or a major complication like stroke is less than 1%. Another possible complication is the need for a pacemaker because the area where the muscle is removed is close to the heart's electrical system; in specialized centers, this is usually less than 2%. 

After surgery, most patients stay in the hospital for about five days. Recovery takes about six to eight weeks. During that time, patients are encouraged to stay active by getting up, walking and moving around. The main restriction is avoiding heavy lifting until the breastbone heals. By two or three months, many people can return to activities such as exercising, running and weightlifting.  

One of the biggest benefits of the procedure is a significant improvement in quality of life. People who were limited by their symptoms before surgery often are able to return to the activities they enjoy afterward. Many patients need less medication after surgery, and others no longer require it. Growing evidence also suggests surgery may help people live longer than medication alone. 

Because HCM is a complex disease, experience matters. Patients considering septal myectomy should feel comfortable asking where the procedure will be performed and how much experience the multidisciplinary care team has treating HCM. Centers with expertise in HCM use a multidisciplinary approach, bringing together cardiologists, surgeons, imaging specialists, genetic experts and other specialists to determine the best overall treatment plan for each patient. 

Joseph Dearani, M.D., Cardiovascular Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota 

The post Mayo Clinic Q&A: When is surgery needed for a thickened heart muscle? appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic researchers report encouraging results using a new radiation technique called minibeam radiotherapy to treat patients with treatment-resistant cancers in or near the skin. The technique delivers very high doses of radiation through closely spaced, extremely narrow beams while limiting radiation exposure to healthy tissue between the beams. 

In a study published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics, researchers found symptoms improved in 86% of patients. Among 40 tumors evaluated, 22.5% disappeared, 25% shrank and 45% remained stable.

"What's encouraging is that patients were able to tolerate these higher radiation doses, even though many had cancers that had resisted previous treatments," says Michael Grams, Ph.D., co-first author of the study and radiation oncology medical physicist at Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. "We're also seeing evidence that this type of radiation may work together with the body's immune system. That could give us another way to approach difficult-to-treat cancers."

The findings suggest that minibeam radiotherapy may do more than change how radiation is delivered. It also may affect tumor biology.

Rethinking how radiation is delivered

Conventional radiation therapy aims to deliver enough radiation to destroy cancer cells while limiting damage to surrounding healthy tissue. Advances in technology have made it possible to target tumors with increasing precision.

"Tumors that require high doses of radiation and have infiltrated sensitive parts of the body provide the most formidable challenge for us. Ideally, we could treat the tumor and preserve function," says Scott Lester, M.D., co-author and a radiation oncologist at Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. "We want to eliminate the cancer and simultaneously promote healing to get the best functional outcome for our patients."

Mayo Clinic researchers began studying minibeam radiotherapy five years ago, building on preclinical research. They developed a device called a tungsten collimator that divides a conventional radiation beam into 0.5-millimeter beamlets spaced 1 millimeter apart from center to center.

The resulting pattern creates areas of high radiation exposure, or "peaks," separated by areas of low exposure, or "valleys." Researchers believe this pattern allows healthy tissue to repair and regenerate more effectively than with conventional radiation therapy. "The treatment can also be completed in two or three sessions instead of 10 to 30 sessions, making it particularly meaningful to patients," says Dr. Grams.

Studying minibeam radiotherapy in patients for the first time

The clinical trial treated 36 patients with 46 tumors, 40 of which could be evaluated. Patients had advanced skin cancers, including melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma, or soft tissue sarcomas. Ninety percent of patients had received at least two previous cancer therapies, and all tumors had been resistant to other treatments. 

Of the 46 tumors, 39 tumors (85%) were treated with minibeam radiotherapy alone, while seven (15%) also received planned conventional radiation therapy.

At a median follow-up of about 15 months, 22.5% of evaluable tumors had disappeared, 25% had shrunk and 45% remained stable. At 12 months, the estimated local control rate — meaning the cancer had not progressed in the treated area — was 89% overall and 92% among tumors receiving minibeam radiotherapy alone.

Patients also experienced substantial symptom relief.

"The study suggested a compelling benefit to quality of life for patients, from relief from pain and bleeding to restoring daily physical functions," says Kimi Chauhan, M.D., a resident in radiation oncology at Mayo Clinic and co-first author of the study.

Patients experienced fewer radiation-related side effects than typically seen with conventional radiation despite receiving higher radiation doses. "The treatment appears to support tissue healing while attacking cancer, making it particularly relevant for complex cases where conventional options are limited," says Dr. Lester. 

Understanding the immune response

Researchers also observed an unexpected finding that raises questions about how minibeam radiotherapy may interact with the immune system.

In 11% of patients, cancer outside the area treated with minibeam radiation also responded, even though patients received no other cancer treatments. This phenomenon, known as an abscopal response, can occur when radiation delivered to one tumor is associated with a response in cancer elsewhere in the body.

"This represents an important shift in how we think about radiotherapy because our results suggest that you don't necessarily need to treat all of the tumor with an ablative dose," says Robert Mutter, M.D., chair of research in the Department of Radiation Oncology and co-leader of the Novel Therapeutics and Therapeutic Modalities Research Program at Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. "We may be able to exploit the distinct ways that tumors die after minibeam radiotherapy to personalize treatment and activate the immune system to fight the cancer."

What's next for minibeam radiotherapy research

Researchers are conducting laboratory studies to better understand the mechanisms that trigger the immune response and which patients are most likely to benefit. An ongoing phase 1 clinical trial is testing increasing doses of minibeam radiotherapy. The team is also developing studies investigating its use in early-stage breast cancer in combination with immunotherapy and during surgery for unresectable pancreatic cancer.

"Minibeam radiotherapy gives us another potential treatment tool for complex cancers," says Dr. Grams. "The goal is now to understand where it can have the greatest impact for patients."

For more information, funding and authors, read the study.

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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 Comprehensive Cancer Center
Designated as a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute, Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center is defining the cancer center of the future, focused on delivering the world's most exceptional patient-centered cancer care for everyone. At Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, a culture of innovation and collaboration is driving research breakthroughs in cancer detection, prevention and treatment to change lives.

Media contact:

• Julie Ferris-Tillman, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu

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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.

 As students across the country return to classrooms and campuses this fall, many are building on experiences they had over the summer. For some learners at Mayo Clinic, those experiences meant exploring healthcare careers, conducting research and connecting with mentors who helped them imagine new possibilities for their futures. 

The path to a career in healthcare rarely begins with a fully formed plan. More often, it starts with an experience that sparks curiosity and helps a student see what's possible. Through pathway programs in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida, Mayo Clinic provides hands-on learning opportunities that help participants explore potential futures in medicine, science and healthcare. 

"Our pathway programs help learners discover where their interests and talents can make the greatest impact," says Nneka I. Comfere, M.D., Waugh Executive Dean of Education. "By creating meaningful opportunities at pivotal moments in their educational journeys, we're helping students explore possibilities, develop purpose and gain the experiences and connections that can shape where they go next." 

By helping students discover their potential and giving them opportunities to build on their interests, these programs are one way Mayo Clinic is investing in the people who will shape the future of healthcare. 

Discovering possibilities 

Many participants first encounter careers they had never considered through these programs. Others gain research experience and forge relationships with professional mentors, giving them the confidence to pursue a path that once felt out of reach.  

For Sam Rudnick, that discovery came through firsthand experiences. As a high school student participating in Rochester's Career Immersion Program (CIP) in 2019, Rudnick was introduced to the surgical assistant role through job shadowing in the operating room. The program helped her identify a profession that aligned with both her interests and lifestyle. 

"Being able to shadow surgical assistants and learn about their daily responsibilities helped me envision myself in that career and confirmed that it was the right path for me," Rudnick says. 

Today, she is enrolled in Mayo Clinic's Surgical First Assistant Program, training for the profession she first encountered through CIP. 

Similar experiences have influenced learners across Mayo Clinic's campuses. In Arizona, CARES (Career Advancement, Research, and Education Summer Program) alumna Pragnya Karlapudi is now a medical student at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine (MCASOM) after first exploring healthcare careers through the program as a high school student.  

In Florida, SPARK (Science Program for the Advancement of Research Knowledge) participant Emily Dorairaj later returned to Mayo Clinic through the undergraduate pathway opportunity CRISP (Clinical and Research Internship for Science Program) before beginning medical school at MCASOM. 

Building on early interests 

As students move through college, many look for opportunities to gain deeper experience in interests they first developed in high school or early healthcare career exploration. 

Programs across Mayo Clinic campuses such as the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), Undergraduate Plummer Scholars (UPS), UPS+ and CRISP provide opportunities to explore research, clinical environments and professional development experiences. 

When Elizabeth "Lizz" Cervantes participated in SURF in Rochester in 2021, she was studying biochemistry at the University of Texas at San Antonio and already knew she wanted to pursue a Ph.D. What she discovered during the program was where she wanted that training to take place. 

During the fellowship, Cervantes worked alongside graduate students whose collaborative approach to science and mentorship left a lasting impression. 

"If I want to grow into that kind of scientist, I should train where they trained," she recalls thinking. 

Today, Cervantes is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Clinical and Translational Science program at Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (MCGSBS). Inspired by her own experience, she now helps lead a professional development seminar series for current SURF participants. 

For Tamiel Turley, Ph.D., the path to biomedical research looked different from many of her peers. After leaving high school at 16, earning her GED, raising a family and becoming a first-generation college student, she wasn't certain she belonged in academic science. That changed during her 2015 SURF experience at Mayo Clinic in Florida. 

"Working alongside established investigators, fellows and clinician-scientists helped me realize that I not only enjoyed research, but that I could actually see myself pursuing a Ph.D. and building a career as a scientist," Turley says. 

She later earned her Ph.D. from MCGSBS and now works as a research associate at Mayo Clinic in Florida, leading projects focused on translational oncology, biomarker discovery and precision medicine. 

Opportunities that extend beyond a summer 

The value of a pathway experience isn't measured in a single summer. The value lies in what students discover — and what they pursue next. 

Students learn about careers they may never have considered, gain confidence in their abilities and develop relationships that continue long after their program ends.  

The journeys of pathways students demonstrate what's possible when those opportunities connect. By helping them understand not only what a future in healthcare could look like but how they might get there, Mayo Clinic is developing talent with the potential to strengthen its own workforce and healthcare more broadly. 

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic researchers have found that artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled spatial analysis can identify patterns in routine pathology slides that may help clinicians identify which patients with pancreatic cancer are at greater risk of recurrence after treatment and surgery.

The study, published in Clinical Cancer Research, suggests that looking at how residual cancer is organized — not just how much remains — could eventually improve estimates of recurrence risk, particularly for patients whose tumors show only a limited response to chemotherapy before surgery.

Patients with a more fragmented, intermixed pattern of cancer and the surrounding tissue, or stroma, had earlier recurrence. The amount of residual cancer alone did not reliably separate patients at higher and lower risk.

"Current pathology assessments largely tell us how much tumor is left after treatment. We wanted to know whether the geography of that remaining cancer could reveal additional biology about recurrence risk," says Ryan Carr, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic oncologist and senior author of the study.

Dr. Carr and his team used an AI tool to identify cancer and stromal regions on standard pathology slides, then measured how those regions formed patches, boundaries and mixed areas to evaluate spatial patterns tied to a higher risk of recurrence. 

Reading the geography of cancer 

The study analyzed tissue from 203 patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who received treatment before surgery but showed only a limited pathologic response. The researchers combined an AI-enabled digital pathology platform with methods adapted from landscape ecology to analyze standard hematoxylin and eosin, or H&E, slides. The approach measured tissue shape, fragmentation, and the degree to which the cancer and stroma were intermixed.

The work builds on Dr. Carr's broader research applying ecological principles to cancer. His team uses machine learning and spatial analysis to map the pancreatic cancer ecosystem and study how cancer cells interact with neighboring cells and tissues — relationships that may influence treatment resistance and recurrence.

Two spatial signatures predicted disease-free survival even after accounting for stage, lymph node status, and other established clinical and pathologic risk factors.

In one model, high-risk patients had a 71% higher adjusted risk of recurrence. In another, high-risk patients had more than twice the adjusted risk. These spatial models helped distinguish patients at higher and lower risk when standard measures, including how much cancer remained, did not.

Because the approach uses pathology slides already generated as part of routine care, it could potentially give clinicians additional information to inform recurrence risk without requiring another tissue test.

Linking tumor patterns and immune response 

"What is exciting is that this information is already present in the tissue," Dr. Carr says. "AI-enabled analysis gives us a way to measure features that are difficult to capture by eye and potentially add another layer of precision to how we assess risk after surgery."

The research also found that high-risk spatial patterns contained fewer immune cells within the cancer itself, with immune cells tending to collect around the tumor instead of entering it. The finding underscores the importance of the tumor microenvironment — the cells and tissues surrounding a tumor — in treatment resistance and disease behavior.

More broadly, the work aligns with Mayo Clinic's Precure Research priority to use data and technology to predict risk earlier and create opportunities to intercept serious disease before it advances.

"Our long-term goal is to better identify which patients remain at greatest risk and ultimately use that knowledge to guide more individualized surveillance, adjuvant therapy and clinical trial design," Dr. Carr says.

The researchers say the results are promising but need to be confirmed in prospective studies before this approach could be used to inform clinical decision-making.

The research was supported in part by the Gerstner Family Career Development Award, the Grand Forks Career Development Award, the Mayo Clinic Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and the ARPA-H ADAPT program. For a complete list of authors, disclosures and funding, review the study. 

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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: 

• Julie Ferris-Tillman, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu 

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic researchers have identified a potential new approach to treating glioblastoma that could help the immune system fight the aggressive brain cancer while improving the effectiveness of existing chemotherapy.

The preclinical research, published in Nature Communications, found that inhibiting the enzymatic activity of a protein called MALT1 can reprogram immune cells surrounding glioblastomas, shifting them from a state that helps protect the cancer to one that promotes an antitumor immune response.

Researchers also found that treatment with a MALT1 inhibitor slowed tumor growth in preclinical models and that combining MALT1 with temozolomide, the chemotherapy most commonly used to treat glioblastoma, enhanced temozolomide effectiveness. In one preclinical model, median survival substantially increased when this chemotherapy was combined with MALT1 inhibition in comparison to treatment with temozolomide alone.

"Glioblastoma is extraordinarily difficult to treat, in part because the tumor is able to manipulate the immune cells around it and create an environment that protects the cancer. Our findings point to a potential approach to disrupting that protection and, importantly, to making an existing treatment more effective," says Juliana (Hofstatter Azambuja) Yerneni, Ph.D., lead author and researcher in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic.

Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive primary cancerous brain tumor in adults and accounts for roughly 5% of malignant brain tumors in children. Despite surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, the cancer remains incurable and almost always returns.

The findings raise the possibility of a future approach that could help patients get more benefit from existing treatments.

"Our goals are to discover how glioblastoma communicates with the immune cells surrounding the tumor in order to dampen the antitumor immune response and to use these discoveries to identify new treatments that enhance antitumor immune response and improve outcomes for patients with this devastating disease," says Linda McAllister-Lucas, M.D., Ph.D., pediatric oncologist, enterprise deputy director for pediatric cancer programs of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center and co-senior author of the study with Peter Lucas, M.D., Ph.D., vice chair for research in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic.

More research is needed to determine which specific subtypes of glioblastoma may be most likely to respond to MALT1-targeted therapy and to evaluate its potential for use in patients.

Review the study for a complete list of authors, disclosures and funding.

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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:

• Tia Ford, Mayo Clinic Communications, newsbureau@mayo.edu

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