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Your generosity enables our researchers and staff members to make discoveries and communicate medical information that helps people around the world. Research at Mayo Clinic spans the breadth of modern medical science. Our research is unique because our researchers are focused on improving the science of medicine, patient treatment and curing disease. We excel at leading the way in translating discoveries into patient care.
Leonard Gunderson, M.D.
Leonard Gunderson, M.D., appreciates being able to call upon his colleagues at Mayo Clinic for advice, a second opinion or to discuss a case when needed. It's this team-approach style to solving problems — a style that spans across many disciplines — that has kept Dr. Gunderson at Mayo Clinic for 26 years.
Dr. Gunderson also greatly appreciates the cancer research support he receives through the Getz Family Professorship. Sandy and Bert Getz, longtime and generous benefactors of Mayo Clinic, established this professorship as a way to foster the progress of medical care, education and research at Mayo Clinic.
With the help of funding from this professorship, Dr. Gunderson can conduct clinical research in his areas of interest, which include the integration of combined therapies and multidisciplinary treatment approaches for patients with a variety of gastrointestinal cancers and soft-tissue sarcomas.
Katherine Hunt
Katherine Hunt believes that knowledge is power. As the clinical genetics counselor at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, she makes this point often in conversations with her patients and their families. They come to her for guidance about inheritable diseases and disorders. They come with questions about the genetic information they share with grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and siblings and about the consequences of passing this genetic information on to future generations. For them, genetics is not a dry, academic subject but rather a very personal, often heart-wrenching narrative. It is a story for which they seek a better outcome.
Hunt, who loves both literature and science, understands their quest. A large number of her patients come with concerns about cancer. She explains that most cancers are not familial, but instead are linked to environmental causes or the consequences of aging. For those families who have rare forms of inheritable cancer, Hunt offers encouraging prospects for them, their relatives and future offspring. Today, many types of cancer are curable if diagnosed early. By sharing genetic history among family members, everyone can take precautions, such as early screenings for cancer.
Hunt does not lecture patients; she holds conversations with them. These discussions are at times suspended by tears and at other times laced with laughter. Her skills for talking, listening or simply being still allow her to convey medical and scientific information in a context of compassion.
She often spends two hours in counseling sessions — much longer than most doctors can spend with patients. This extensive patient contact is one thing that drew her to this profession. Hunt was on course to go to medical school, inspired by a grandfather who was an obstetrician and gynecologist, when a mentor suggested she shadow a genetics counselor. "I was sold almost immediately," she says. "I realized as a physician I wouldn't have this much interaction with patients. I felt like this was a job where I could make a big difference in the lives of patients."
Douglas Plager, Ph.D.
Douglas Plager, Ph.D., is a research associate at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. His area of interest is atopic dermatitis (eczema). That interest is personal. The disorder has hospitalized him several times, and his young son is also displaying early symptoms of the condition.
Atopic dermatitis causes intense itching and afflicts millions of individuals worldwide. It often occurs along with allergies and tends to run in families where other members have hay fever or asthma.
Although the exact cause of atopic dermatitis is unknown, one theory is that it is due to a malfunction in the body's immune system. Dr. Plager hopes his research will one day help lead to a cure for this disorder. His important research is made possible, in part, thanks to the philanthropic partnership of Smith H. Gibson, M.D., and his wife, Lucille, who have established a postdoctoral research fellowship in dermatology.
Kai-Nan An, Ph.D.
Kai-Nan An, Ph.D., is focused on finding ways to help patients with disabilities improve their quality of life. Dr. An's work in Mayo Clinic's Biomedical and Motion Analysis Laboratories analyzes how the body moves, the types of stress movement creates and how tissues behave under these stressors. He works with fellow researchers to develop methods to replace or regenerate parts damaged by disease or injury.
Dr. An's specialties involve the biomechanics of the upper body in ergonomics and rehabilitation with an aim to prevent repetitive traumatic injury and to improve treatment for musculoskeletal disorders.
Dr. An's work is funded, in part, by the John and Posy Krehbiel Professorship in Orthopedics. This professorship enables Dr. An to focus on his work and the needs of his patients. In turn, his focus helps Mayo Clinic maintain its level of excellence.
Thomas Gonwa, M.D.
Cesar Keller, M.D.
Thomas Gonwa, M.D., and Cesar Keller, M.D., are transplant medicine physicians at Mayo Clinic in Florida. The two physicians work with a team of specialists across Mayo Clinic's transplant program at all three sites. These transplant programs increasingly function as one and form a program with a unique ability to serve patients and advance transplant medicine, says Dr Gonwa.
"Each site has its own strengths," Dr. Gonwa explains. "In Jacksonville, it's availability of organs and short wait times. The William J. von Liebig Transplant Center in Rochester has tremendous strengths in research, as well as a large living-donor transplant program. Arizona also has a large living-donor program and is growing very rapidly. When you combine all three, you have one transplant program that can serve all patients."
In every solid organ category, wait times at Mayo Clinic in Florida are several months — even years — shorter than national medians. Leading the way is the liver transplant program, which despite being the nation's largest, has the shortest median wait time in the country — 1.4 months, compared to a national average of 45 months. The short wait times are the result of several factors, says Dr. Keller, such as:
If there is a single area of transplant medicine that benefits most from Mayo's regional diversity, it may be clinical studies of patient-based research. The different strengths at each Mayo campus are coming together to create innovative clinical studies that also have applicability to all transplant patients. A recent study in Jacksonville and Scottsdale to improve immunosuppression, a key strategy for preventing organ rejection, brings together distinct strengths of both campuses. Additionally, conducting the study at both campuses improves participant recruitment, allows the team to reach its goal of 200 patients faster and evaluates a more diverse sample of participants, Dr. Gonwa says. "We are able to include participants from several races and ethnicities and produce results that are applicable to a broad spectrum of patients," he says.
Thoralf Sundt III, M.D.
"Pain matters," says Thoralf M. Sundt III, M.D., a cardiovascular surgeon at Mayo Clinic. "Here, we take pain seriously."
Mayo Clinic's cardiac surgical intensive care and step-down units are taking specific measures to ensure that high-touch comfort keeps pace with advancing technology.
Interventions for controlling pain and improving comfort for heart-surgery patients are generated at the Healing Enhancement Program, an interdisciplinary work group with a target goal of pain-free heart surgery. Dr. Sundt serves as practice champion for the group.
"Heart surgery will never be entirely pain free, but we have to set a stretch goal," he says. "It's no good saying that we're going to make heart surgery as painless as possible. We've been saying that for a long time. We want to make it pain free."
From heart pillows to pain pumps, all measures to provide comfort and control pain are fair game for this group. Dr. Sundt and others are working on incorporating wedges on the operating room table — to help relieve post operative discomfort — by slightly elevating the patient's knees and thighs.
The team will assess the effectiveness of this intervention and continue to look for other ways to improve the comfort of each patient. Research is the basis for accepting or rejecting ideas that come through the Healing Enhancement Program. "I'm convinced that the way to make substantive progress in a data-driven institution like ours is through research," says Dr. Sundt. "We're continually evaluating these measures before we make a practice change."
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