Engineering Earlier Cancer Detection Through AI
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Bahman and Becky Hoveida believe in a future of healthcare where cancers are diagnosed earlier, at a stage when treatments are less taxing and the chance of survival is greater.
It’s a vision that is close to the couple’s heart, as both have witnessed friends and family pass away from the disease.
“I’ve seen the time, the energy and the emotions that the entire family goes through watching their loved one undergo cancer treatment for months or even years,” says Becky, whose father passed away from melanoma when she was 13 years old. “If we catch the cancer earlier when the treatment isn’t so challenging, it would be life-changing for so many families.”
To help fuel this critical work, Bahman and Becky established the Hoveida Family Foundation Cancer Discovery and Interception Fund through a generous gift from the Hoveida Family Foundation. Becky and Bahman are recognized as Philanthropic Partners.
The fund is helping accelerate Mayo Clinic’s bold vision to revolutionize cancer care. Researchers are using innovative, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled science to detect cancer earlier, intercept and reverse cancer growth, and intervene before cancer progresses to more advanced disease.
“When Mayo Clinic finds solutions, their goal is to disseminate information across the medical field worldwide and make it available to everyone. They are helping more than their own patients — they are helping the world."
— BECKY HOVEIDA
The concept of using AI to find solutions to challenges is a process that Bahman understands well. An engineer and businessman, he co-founded a software company, Open Systems International, in Minnesota in 1992. As the company grew, Bahman and Becky never wavered from their commitment to environmental stewardship, ethical sourcing and treating their employees like members of their own family. After selling the company in 2020, the couple formed their family foundation so that they could “keep doing good.”
The Hoveida Family Foundation is focused on the pursuit of science to help humanity and the environment. This includes critical medical research, and Bahman says that Mayo Clinic was at the top of their list. Bahman, who was born in Iran, recalls hearing of the medical organization as a child.
“I knew that the royal family was seen at Mayo Clinic and that it was the great center of medical care in the world, but I didn’t really know much else at the time,” Bahman says.
That all changed in 1999, when Bahman’s father was diagnosed with colon cancer and selected Mayo Clinic for his care.
“The care he got was excellent,” says Bahman. “I was very impressed with the systems in place, and that’s when I realized what a high-quality institution Mayo Clinic was. Healthcare is moving to a high-tech, data-driven industry, and Mayo is pioneering this work.”
Both Bahman and Becky are patients in the Mayo Clinic Executive Health Program, trusting Mayo Clinic with their personal care as they stay connected with the promising research efforts that they’ve helped make possible — including AI-powered breast cancer detection and early pancreatic cancer detection.
Within breast cancer research, a Mayo Clinic researcher and a researcher from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have used funds to develop and test a model that better identifies women who are at high risk and would benefit from preventive measures like lifestyle changes and risk-reducing medications. Next steps will be to validate the model.
In pancreatic cancer research, a physician researcher and his team have designed an AI Pancreas Cancer Early Detection trial, which is expected to launch later this year. The trial will leverage an AI language model to screen 10,000 patients, identifying those at elevated risk for pancreatic cancer.
“The work in pancreatic and breast cancer is so meaningful to us,” explains Becky. “Just before we gave our gift, we had lost a valued employee and friend to pancreatic cancer. The time from diagnosis to death was so short. I had also recently lost a family member to breast cancer. The idea of using science to diagnose these cancers at an earlier stage is incredibly important.”
The Hoveida Family Foundation Cancer Discovery and Interception Fund is also supporting AI-Powered Science and Discovery Awards in Cancer. This program finds and funds the most innovative concepts and proposals from individuals and teams across Mayo Clinic.
“Mayo Clinic has created a great team of researchers, data scientists and AI experts,” says Bahman. “They have a level of passion that I have not seen anywhere else. If a practical solution comes out of this research to detect cancer even six months ahead of when cancer symptoms manifest, that’s a huge advancement in saving thousands of lives. I have great hopes that Mayo Clinic will be successful.”
Becky agrees, adding that she feels pride in being part of Mayo Clinic’s mission to help people everywhere.
“When Mayo Clinic finds solutions, their goal is to disseminate information across the medical field worldwide and make it available to everyone,” says Becky. “They are helping more than their own patients — they are helping the world."
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