Narrator: Coming up on Mayo Clinic Q&A, a look at diagnostic
and precision medicine. Mayo Clinic Biopharma Diagnostics
collaborates with Biopharma Diagnostics and bio companies to
provide precision medicine that identifies the disease of a
particular patient and helps provide early and proper
treatment.
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: The faster we reach the right
diagnosis for a patient not only improves their outcomes to deal
with that disease and have the right treatment, but it has been
shown that the overall cost of health care is also reduced by
providing the right answers faster.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: Welcome, everyone to Mayo Clinic Q&A.
I'm your host, Dr. Halena Gazelka. Mayo Clinic Biopharma
Diagnostics collaborates with Biopharma Diagnostic and other
biotech companies to enable precision medicine through
advanced diagnostics. So, how does diagnostic testing lead to
precision medicine, and what does that mean for our patients?
Here to discuss that with us today is the medical director of
Biopharma Diagnostics, Dr. Alicia Algeciras. Welcome
Alicia.
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: I'm delighted to get to speak with
you today. I love to learn something new every day, and I
just have a feeling I'm going to learn something from you. But
before we start our discussion about diagnostic testing, I'd
love it if you would tell our audience a little bit about your
lifelong passion for science and how that led you here to Mayo
Clinic. I heard that you loved science even as a child.
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: Yes, absolutely. You know, I've
always been drawn to science, especially laboratory sciences.
I find it very exciting and thrilling to be able to use
laboratory tests and laboratory findings to provide better
patient care and provide better answers to patients. And when I
started in college, I had the opportunity to work in a
research laboratory. I had a wonderful mentor, and that led
me to the opportunity to actually come to Mayo Clinic as
an undergraduate student. I spent two summers here doing
research. And again, wonderful mentors here at Mayo that
fostered my passion for research and laboratory science. And here
I am many years later working in the clinical laboratories at
Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: I love your story. I think it's so
fascinating. You know, we all may have something a little bit
inborn in us that interests us, but then it's really mentoring
and others who help to bring that out and help us find a
career path with it. So, that's just wonderful.
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: Thank you.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: So, Alicia many people have heard of Mayo
Clinic, but they may not have heard of Mayo Clinic Biopharma
Diagnostics. What is it?
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: So yes, our group has been around
for a number of years now. And we offer a number of solutions
for pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, as well
as in vitro diagnostic companies. And our goal is to
really make the right connections between these
companies and Mayo Clinic, either expertise or resources,
whether that's working with our clinical laboratories, or
working with various experts in the research areas or clinical
areas. So, just to give you a little bit more detail are
examples of how we work with this company. For example, with
a pharmaceutical company, we might engage with them to
provide laboratory testing to support a clinical trial. And
that could be used to select patients that will benefit from
being on that trial. Or it could be to measure patient outcomes
when they're taking the therapy during the trial. We also
partner with companies to develop new tests that can be
used as part of that clinical trial to monitor a patient's
response or in the context of in vitro diagnostic companies. We
work with them to help them bring laboratory tests into the
market faster but ensuring they're ensuring that they are
high quality tests that meet patient needs.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: How very interesting. Alicia, during the
COVID 19 pandemic, an incredible awareness was brought to the
public of the needs to be innovative and to develop
diagnostic testing rapidly as there was no real COVID tests
before this and there were so many developed. Can you walk us
through what diagnostic testing is, what it involves, and how it
helps physicians and patients find solutions?
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: Yes, you know, a laboratory test is
one that it can either help in making a diagnosis for a
disease, or it can help guide the clinician to the right
diagnosis or to the right treatment. So, it's usually a
blood test, but it could also be urine, or it could be in saliva,
for example. You maybe heard of the recent COVID-19 saliva test.
But, in all cases, you know, when a sample is collected, then
it's sent to the laboratory for analysis, and then we provide a
result to the clinician that is able to either help them make
the right diagnosis, or it can help them guide treatment.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: And so, it's important that this be rapid I
imagine or as quickly as quickly performed as possible?
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: Yes, absolutely. I think, you know,
that's the key with some of the laboratory testing. The reason
why laboratory tests are important is because patients
sometimes present to the doctor with symptoms that are
nonspecific and might overlap with various diseases. So, let's
just take for example, COVID-19. When you look at COVID-19, the
flu, and the common cold, they all have nonspecific symptoms
and symptoms that may overlap. However, we know that the
outcomes of a patient infected with COVID-19 might be very
different than a patient infected with the virus that
caused the common cold. In addition, we know that the
spreading of the different diseases might be different. So,
it is very important that we know what virus is causing the
symptoms on that individual, so they can get the right treatment
and that can be a quicker answer for these patients.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: That makes perfect sense, Alicia. So,
being expeditious is important as well as being precise.
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: Yes, absolutely. You know, and the
faster we reach the right diagnosis for a patient not only
improves their outcomes to deal with that disease and have the
right treatment, but it has been shown that the overall cost of
health care is also reduced by providing the right answers
faster.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: One other question that many of our
listeners may have, and I would enjoy hearing your answer as
well, is that we hear a lot these days about precision
medicine. In fact, we have a Center for Individualized
Medicine here at Mayo Clinic. What is precision medicine? And
how does diagnostic testing play a role in precision medicine?
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: Yes, so you know, precision medicine
has been one of the greatest advancements in science, if you
ask me. Because it really takes away the one size fits all
approach of medicine, and it really becomes a more tailored
treatment based on that patient's genetic makeup. And
so, that by knowing the patient's genetic information,
the clinician can make decisions about the best treatment, about
the right dose for that patient, and also can decide whether
there is the need for having different monitoring approaches
on that patient taking a medication because of the way
that the patient might respond to a particular treatment or
therapy. So, just to give you an example of how that has helped
patients, when you look at a woman with breast cancer, we
know that about 25% of woman have a genetic mutation that
predispose them to make too much of a certain protein called
Her2. Now we're able to do genetic testing in the
laboratory for that protein and determine whether that
particular patient produces too much of it. If they produce too
much, now we are able to tailor their treatment and in addition
to give them chemotherapy or radiation therapy, we can add a
drug that is called Herceptin. And that drug has been shown to
be specifically successful or useful to treat patients that
make too much of this particular protein. So, by doing this more
individualized treatment, we improve the outcomes of this
woman that are positive for HER2, and it also really has
been shown that overall increases the chances that the
cancer will not come back on these women.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: That's just wonderful Alicia, it sounds like
it's rather than a shot in the dark approach where you just
give a chemotherapy because someone has breast cancer, that
you can be much more specific, and it treats specifically and
therefore more accurately.
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: Yes, absolutely. And really, we're
doing this very often with not just breast cancer, but with
many other cancers that we can look at the genetic composition
of that individual and tailor their treatment. And really,
it's been a great success for our patient outcomes.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: That's wonderful. Thank you for being
here today. Do you have anything else that you'd like to share
with our listeners today about your field of study?
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: No, I think that, you know, we're
very excited. I'm personally very passionate about what we're
doing in biopharma, at Mayo Clinic Biopharma Diagnostics,
being able to make those connections with industry to
advance patient care to provide better outcomes. And, you know,
we are doing great. We're growing significantly, and I'm
excited that we're just in the process of building a new lab
here in Rochester that will help foster some of these
collaborations and been able to bring some more of these
companies to work with Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: And I'm just delighted to meet you today,
Alicia, and to know that there are people like you who are
working so hard on finding solutions for our patients. It
is amazing. Thank you.
Dr. Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich: Thank you for having me.
Dr. Halena Gazelka: Our thanks to Dr. Alicia Algeciras, for
being here today to talk to us about precision medicine and
diagnostics and how they tie together. I hope that you
learned something. I know that I did. We wish each of you a
wonderful day.
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