Advanced diagnostics, redefined

Utilizing testing capabilities of two separate laboratory facilities, Mayo Clinic Laboratories’ new serotonin release assay (SRA) is a gold-standard test supported by decades of clinical hematopathologic experience and advanced mass spectrometry testing.

An effective laboratory outreach program can unlock a wide array of benefits for a health system and its laboratory. Every day, hospital laboratories struggle for dollars to meet the challenges of decreasing reimbursement and rising costs. How are they expected to survive (or possibly even thrive)? That is where laboratory outreach can make a difference. In outreach, a laboratory’s services become externally focused rather than only concentrating on the patients in hospital beds. It is the opposite of traditional lab medicine — it is entrepreneurial, intentional, and effective.

Since overcoming a life-threatening diagnosis five years ago, Jim Smith has embraced life. But each time he travels to Mayo Clinic for follow-up laboratory testing, a well of emotions rises up to remind him of life’s fragility. Thankfully, through streamlined, accurate testing and top-notch clinical care, those feelings are generally short-lived.

In the inaugural episode of the "Leveraging the Laboratory" podcast, host Jane Hermansen, outreach manager at Mayo Clinic Laboratories, is joined by outreach colleagues Brianne Newton and Ellen Dijkman Dulkes. They discuss their laboratory backgrounds, the history and importance of laboratory outreach, and how their work can support the growth of hospital laboratories.

In a groundbreaking study, Mayo Clinic investigators have developed a multiomic molecular method to predict clinical COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) outcomes better than traditional cytokines. Using a machine-learning-based prediction model, the team identified 102 biomarkers, which include several novel cytokines and other proteins, lipids, and metabolites. The discovery may help clinicians reliably predict a more severe course of COVID-19 before the patient gets sick enough to be hospitalized. Until now, there have been no biomarkers that can reliably predict which patients are more likely to have severe illness.

Two years ago, when 29-year-old Meckenzie Tinaglia experienced a series of seizure-like events shortly after a cardiac ablation procedure, she knew her heart was to blame. Her local providers, however, weren’t convinced. If not for Mayo Clinic remote cardiac monitoring and the data it provided about Meckenzie’s potentially fatal arrythmia, the busy wife and young mother might not have survived.

By collaborating with Mayo Clinic Laboratories, Morris Hospital & Healthcare Center has been able to expand complex and specialized lab testing in the communities they serve.

In Mayo Clinic’s Advanced Diagnostics Laboratory, there are dozens of projects underway at once to develop new technologies, discover novel findings, validate new tests, and support physicians in providing advanced patient care. For example, researchers are using phage immunoprecipitation sequencing (PhIP-Seq) to discover new serological biomarkers for autoimmune diseases. In a recent study using PhIP-Seq, Mayo Clinic researchers discovered a previously unknown antibody marker for immune-mediated rippling muscle disease (iRMD). This finding will support testing options and accurate diagnosis of iRMD, helping physicians treat patients with iRMD and restore their quality of life.

Kenneth Hobby assumed his fever, fatigue, and aching pains in May 2018 were from another bout of malaria. He was on one of his frequent visits to Zambia in southern Africa, where the mosquito-borne parasite is common. But anti-malaria drugs didn't help, and soon Kenneth had such disabling pain that he could barely walk.

In a recent study, Mayo Clinic researchers developed the first cellular DNA barcoding with a machine-learning approach to reveal previously unknown metastatic behavior of tumor cells. Researchers barcoded the DNA of millions of human ovarian cancer cells and transplanted them in mice, where rare tumor initiating cells and their progenies could be tracked within the primary tumor as well as in every other organ they were spreading into. The entire community of cells generated by a single barcoded cell had identical barcodes. This enabled the tracking of a large number of benign and metastatic clones by sequencing DNA barcodes in tumors and various organs, including blood and ascites. Using the cellular DNA barcoding approach and a newly developed data analysis system, researchers could track clonal growth dynamics in various metastatic sites and trace it back to its ancestral tumor-initiating cell. They used artificial intelligence to tackle the complex data to identify if the clonal metastatic spread is happening peritoneally or through blood routes.

At just 24-years-old Anya Magnuson has survived not just one but two close encounters with death. Focused, determined, and intent on experiencing life to its fullest, Anya never gave up. Nor did the multidisciplinary Mayo Clinic care team who worked tirelessly to heal her.

Bringing together advanced testing technology, unparalleled expertise, and a patient-focused approach, Mayo Clinic Laboratories’ new high-resolution urine drug testing profile, ADMPU, evaluates for 22 drug classes including alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine, enabling clarity on substance use and precision insights that propel treatment.