The Institute for Precision Medicine hosts a monthly lecture series to highlight advances in Precision Medicine research and in Personalized Care – not only at Pitt/UPMC but across the United States.
The second IPM lecture for the Fall 2021 semester will be given by Elaine Mardis, PhD, co-Executive Director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital at the Ohio State University.
Dr. Mardis has authored over 350 articles in prestigious peer-reviewed journals and has written book chapters for several medical textbooks. She serves as an associate editor for three peer-reviewed journals (Disease Models and Mechanisms, Molecular Cancer Research, and Annals of Oncology) and is Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Case Studies and current President-Elect of the American Academy of Cancer Research (AACR)
Dr. Mardis’s lecture will focus on the broad lessons from her work in pediatric cancer genomics and on new developments that will bring molecular characterization to the forefront of evidence-based diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. She will discuss her group’s findings in high-grade CNS malignancies and comment on umbrella clinical trial design that aided the translation of results to therapeutic modalities, focused on the most prevalent drivers and pathways. Larger-scale testing is being funded by NCI, enabling broader application of these approaches to pediatric patients across the United States. These emerging studies parallel efforts around the world and portend a future where molecular profiling of pediatric cancers is a standard of care.
