As precision medicine continues to transform drug development, diagnostic testing plays an increasingly important role in connecting patients to clinical trials. In a recent article published in Applied Clinical Trials, Chris Garcia, M.D., chief digital innovation officer at Mayo Clinic Laboratories, explores how laboratories can help improve clinical trial participation by making diagnostic data more accessible, actionable, and connected.

Dr. Garcia highlights several opportunities to strengthen the link between diagnostics and clinical research:

• Deliver structured, usable data: Diagnostic results should be reported in standardized, coded formats that can be integrated into trial-matching systems, reducing reliance on manual review and helping identify eligible patients more efficiently.
• Engage laboratory partners early: Clinical trials often depend on specialized biomarker testing, but assays require time to develop and validate. Involving laboratories during protocol design helps ensure testing is ready when patient screening begins.
• Expand access to testing and research: Better-connected diagnostic systems can help identify eligible patients beyond major academic medical centers, improving access to clinical trials and supporting more representative study populations.

“The test is the ticket to the trial,” says Dr. Garcia. “Yet access to testing is uneven. Results often arrive in forms that neither a researcher nor a matching system can act on, and in many places there is no connection at all between the lab that produced the result and the team looking for patients.”

By bringing researchers, clinicians, and laboratory professionals together earlier in the process, organizations can improve enrollment, accelerate precision medicine research, and help ensure patients are connected to appropriate clinical trial opportunities when they become available.

Read the full article.