Three centers create tighter links between research and care
Putting the needs of patients first
How can Mayo sustain and enhance its premier position in the fast-changing world of medicine? Three collaborative centers, two new in 2011, reflect Mayo's strategic commitment to creating tighter links between research and care.
Center for Regenerative Medicine
Healing from within
How do you create new treatments that can actually repair diseased, injured or congenitally defective tissues?
Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine is translating new knowledge on disease causes and cures into informed delivery of effective quality care. Multidisciplinary teams are studying the emerging science of regenerative medicine to create definitive, affordable treatment options for repair of diseased, injured or congenitally defective tissues.
Key initiatives
Using integrated strategies of rejuvenation, replacement and regeneration, the Center for Regenerative Medicine will:
- Discover, translate and apply regenerative medicine science into innovative practice.
- Advance next generation regenerative medicine products and service lines.
- Educate vanguard health care scientists and providers.
- Build regenerative medicine global alliances and community partnerships.
- Establish regenerative medicine and surgery models of care.
Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., the director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine, and Michael Pfenning, senior administrator, are leading efforts to establish this new center across Mayo Clinic.
"The science of today is the practice of tomorrow," says Robert Rizza, M.D., Mayo Clinic executive dean for research.
Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery
Engineered for results
How do you design and validate the most efficient, effective medical practices that can be shared and replicated for patients throughout the U.S.?
The Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery, new in January 2011, is tackling this challenging question. Researchers are using in-depth medical records studies, informatics, epidemiology and systems engineering to transform the way patients everywhere receive and experience health care.
Longtime Mayo Clinic benefactors Robert and Patricia Kern have given $20 million to help launch the new center.
"Mayo has been an important part of our family for many decades," says Mr. Kern. "We admire their culture of putting the needs of the patient first, and we are honored to join with them to lead the transformation of health care."
"The Kern family's gift will help Mayo lead the way in shaping the face of health care in the 21st century," says John Noseworthy, M.D., Mayo Clinic president and CEO.
Key initiatives
- Value analysis. Examining quality, safety, cost and outcomes data to identify best practices.
- Systems engineering. Applying principles from engineering, management and science to improve patient care.
- Health care delivery research. Bringing together researchers and clinicians to study, test and implement new models of health care delivery.
- Population health. Identifying and researching health care models that can be applied to large populations.
Every project and initiative in the center is inspired by real-world challenges experienced by real patients at Mayo Clinic and elsewhere.
"At the end of the day, health care is about treating patients in a manner that delivers optimal outcomes and quality of life in the most efficient way possible," says Veronique Roger, M.D., M.P.H., director of the center.
Center for Individualized Medicine
Personalizing care, preventing disease
How do you translate discoveries in genomic and clinical science into new ways to predict, diagnose and treat disease — for each individual patient?
Projects in the Center for Individualized Medicine will lead to increased capabilities for doctors to predict, and perhaps prevent, some diseases; take earlier action when diseases do arise; and choose the most effective medications and treatments, while minimizing their side effects.
Key initiatives
- Biomarker discovery. Biomarkers are molecular substances that may indicate health or disease. Mayo researchers are identifying biomarkers and using them to create new diagnostic and predictive tests that improve patient care for many diseases including Alzheimer's Disease, endometrial cancer, fibrosis, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, T-cell lymphoma and prostate cancer.
- Clinomics. Clinomics translate all that is known about genomics and epigenomics into clinical tests that can determine disease risk and optimize treatment — for individual patients.
- Epigenomics. Epigenomics explores the impact of environmental factors on the way genes are expressed. As people are exposed to environmental triggers, their epigenomes are altered. However, these changes can be reversed. By enabling Mayo Clinic researchers to better understand how a given disease arises and progresses in each specific patient, epigenomics holds great promise for individualizing patient care especially as epigenomic changes can be reversed.
- Microbiomes. The groups of microbes that live in or on our body are called microbiomes. Certain microbiomes have been tied to cancer, obesity, depression, wound healing, and preterm labor and infection risk after surgery. Changes in microbiomes are associated with inflammatory bowel disease, diversion colitis and colon cancer. Mayo research plan to use microbiome profiles to detect, prevent, diagnose and treat infections or disease.
- Pharmacogenomics. Pharmacogenomics is the study of how genetics influence response to medications. By using each patient's unique genetic composition as a factor in determining what drug, at what dose and at what time is right, physicians will be able to maximize treatment effectiveness while avoiding potentially life-threatening side effects. Mayo physicians are researching the benefit of pharmacogenomics in several diseases including cardiovascular disease, psychiatric disease and breast cancer.
Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., the director of the Center for Individualized Medicine, has a long history of leveraging genetic knowledge to find treatments, identify risks and determine the right drug or dosage for patients.
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