Rewiring the Future

Every thought, memory and movement generates an electrical signal in the brain. For decades, clinicians have recorded these signals during routine diagnostics and surgical care without fully understanding their meaning. But these thousands upon thousands of datapoints could reveal how the brain works, how it changes with age and how it breaks down in disease. Mayo Clinic's BIONIC initiative aims to crack the code.

Despite the wealth of recording data, the field of neuroscience remains in its infancy. The brain's circuitry is far more complex than many realize, and the gap between what we know and what we need to understand has created an urgent challenge: How do we translate the brain's own language into treatments that can halt or reverse neurological disease?

Mayo Clinic's institution-wide initiative brings together neurologists, neurosurgeons, bioengineers, data scientists and neurophysiologists in a rich ecosystem that aims to answer that question through three interconnected approaches.

The program plans to do this first by collecting and harmonizing electrical signaling data into a comprehensive biobank called NeuroElectromics. This will create the next frontier in neuroscientific discovery and provide an unparalleled resource for the greater neuroscience community.

Secondly, researchers will apply advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning modeling to identify early biomarkers for neurological disease — patterns in electrical signals that could predict a person's risk for dementia, epilepsy, mood disorders and degenerative conditions long before symptoms are visible.

Finally, Mayo Clinic experts will close the loop, by turning those insights into precision neuromodulation therapies that speak back to the brain, allowing it to heal itself.

The vision is ambitious, moving from reactive symptom management to proactive, personalized care guided by the brain's own signals. Instead of waiting for decline or relying solely on surgical intervention, these tools would monitor activity and respond in real time, creating a therapeutic conversation between the brain and the device. Implantable devices could sense abnormal activity and deliver electrical stimulation to stop a seizure before it starts. Wearable devices could rewire abnormal neural circuits through noninvasive stimulation. Cell-enhanced implants could release neurotransmitters or critical proteins precisely where needed. Simple recordings of voice, eye movement and gait can serve as early biomarkers of deterioration.

Turning this vision into reality requires more than technology alone. It demands leaders who move seamlessly between clinic and lab — clinicians who can listen closely to the brain's activity and translate it into care for people living with serious or complex diseases.

At Mayo Clinic, that work comes to life through several of the physicians driving BIONIC forward, each bringing a distinctive perspective and expertise to this transformative effort.

The post Rewiring the Future appeared first on Mayo Clinic Magazine.

Precision Without Compromise

In the mid-2000s, Nadia Laack, M.D., a pediatric radiation oncologist at Mayo Clinic, saw an opportunity for patients. Mayo Clinic in Rochester was in the midst of designing a new facility for proton beam therapy — a powerful form of radiation that uses streams of protons to destroy tumor cells.

Dr. Laack knew that many patients would benefit the most from pencil beam scanning, the newest form of proton beam therapy. With this precise tool, she could direct protons at the exact contours of a tumor without injuring nearby organs.

But there was a catch. With pencil beam scanning, patients must remain perfectly still. For cancers in the lungs or abdomen, even the subtle movement of breathing could throw the beam off target.

And to prevent young children from wiggling, any form of proton therapy requires anesthesia, which greatly lengthens time in the treatment room.

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As a result, existing proton beam facilities only offered pencil beam scanning for cases where movement could be more controlled. These facilities also strictly limited the number of children they would treat each day so that, from a financial perspective, they could reserve more space for adults who could be moved in and out quickly.

Dr. Laack found these compromises unacceptable. Her colleagues agreed. Mayo Clinic would build the first proton beam facility in the United States that would exclusively offer the more advanced pencil beam scanning approach without limiting access for children.

To do so would come with significantly more work for Dr. Laack and her team, who partnered with engineers and physicists to design new tools to adapt to patients’ movements. And she brought on anesthesiologists to help engineer new ways to move kids in and out of treatment more quickly.

The Mayo Clinic Richard O. Jacobson Building housing the state-of-the-art proton beam facility opened in 2015. And Dr. Laack’s team has never had to turn away a child.

“We didn’t want anything to stand in the way of our ability to treat kids who needed our care,” she says.

Promise in Pencil Beam

Dr. Laack was committed to building a pencil beam scanning facility because she saw how much potential the treatment had to reduce the long-term side effects of radiation for many patients.

Traditionally, patients received radiation with photons, X-rays that pass into the body, through the tumor and out the other side of the body.

Photon radiation is an effective treatment for many cancers and is still commonly used today. But its path through the body requires radiation oncologists to limit the dose or risk damaging healthy tissue.

Proton beam therapy works by using a particle accelerator to whip protons up to a super high velocity — nearly the speed of light. A technician then directs these highly energized protons at a tumor. As protons pass into the body, they release most of their energy within the tumor, minimizing the radiation hitting healthy tissue around the cancer.

Pencil beam scanning is an even more targeted form that delivers protons packed into balls the size of pencil erasers, rather than a scattering of protons covering a wider area.

That precision is critical for children who could develop long-term side effects — such as growth, fertility or vision issues — if healthy tissue is damaged along with the tumor. Adults too can benefit from pencil beam scanning when tumors are situated in sensitive areas such as the brain, spinal cord, heart, lungs, liver and other abdominal organs.

Making Pencil Beam Possible

Dr. Laack and her team from the Division of Medical Physics collaborated with colleagues in the Department of Engineering to design tools to follow tumors in real time and only deliver protons when the tumors are on target. The team developed a respiration tracking tool, for example, that they place on a patient’s abdomen to capture the movement of breathing. They can then automatically trigger the proton beam to pause each time a tumor moves above or below the beam’s reach with each breath in and out.

To open access for more children, the team worked with Mayo Clinic anesthesiologists to figure out how to shorten treatment time. Their solution: prepare children for treatment outside of the pencil beam scanning room.

In the pretreatment area, a young patient lies on a specialized mobile table and begins receiving anesthesia from a compact delivery system. Once asleep, the child is then wheeled on the table into the pencil beam treatment room without interruption to anesthesia. Then a robotic arm docks onto the treatment table and moves it into the beam position. The robotic arm also has a compact anesthesia system built into the base, so the transfer of anesthesia tubes and lines is quick and seamless.

When designing this solution, the team was inspired by how anesthesia is delivered on the Mayo Clinic’s medical helicopters, says Dr. Laack. “You have a tight space in a helicopter too, and you don't want anesthesia lines in the way.”

In the proton beam treatment rooms, technicians use advanced imaging techniques to quickly pinpoint the precise location of the tumor. The robotic table adjusts and aligns the child perfectly so that the pencil beam directly hits the tumor.  

Commitment to Research and Care

Dr. Laack’s passion for designing the best possible cancer care began when her grandfather was diagnosed with leukemia. At the time, she was a college student at Colorado State University. She knew she couldn’t learn enough fast enough to help him. But she committed then to studying cancer so that she could help others.

As a medical student at Loma Linda University in California, Dr. Laack conducted research alongside her coursework, earning a master’s in physiology with a focus on breast cancer research.

She envisioned herself as a full-time cancer researcher. But then she began clinical rotations and discovered how much she values working with patients. “I was still passionate about studying cancer biology,” she says, “But the patient interaction was what brought me the most meaning and joy.”

It is so important to have all the tools in our toolbox so we can continue offering these patients the very best care.

— Nadia Laack, M.D.

As a radiation oncology resident at Mayo Clinic, she discovered that she was especially drawn to helping one patient group in particular: children. Working with kids facing difficult diagnoses was emotionally challenging, she says. “But I felt this was where I was needed the most.”

Today, Dr. Laack cares for patients of all ages, with a special focus on children. She also continues her research.

Before launching the proton beam facility, for example, Dr. Laack and her team spent a decade studying proton therapy and developing computer models that could project how effective and safe their new pencil beam facility would be for treating a wide range of cancers, including brain, breast, prostate and lung. After opening, they led more than 70 clinical trials to confirm that their proton therapy treatment resulted in the best outcomes. 

“The safety of our patients is the highest priority,” she says.

Accelerating Radiation Therapy Innovation for Patients

Today, Mayo Clinic’s proton beam therapy program has treated more than 10,000 patients, and soon, Mayo Clinic and Dr. Laack will have yet another radiation tool available for patients.

Within a few years, the recently constructed Duan Family Building at Mayo Clinic in Florida will be the first clinic in North America to offer a new technology: carbon ion therapy.

Carbon ion therapy is precise, much like proton therapy. But because carbon ions are more massive than protons, their impact is even more damaging to a tumor — making this form of radiation especially effective for patients with large or resistant tumors.

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Dr. Laack was an early proponent of bringing carbon ion therapy to Mayo Clinic. She recognized that Mayo Clinic staff were uniquely positioned to develop the new technology because of the knowledge they had already gained in proton therapy.

“We believed strongly that if anybody in North America was going to offer carbon ion therapy to patients, it needed to be Mayo Clinic,” she says. “We have the physics, the engineering and the physician expertise to be able to do it well and safely.”

Few of Dr. Laack’s pediatric patients require carbon ion therapy because pediatric tumors typically respond well to photon or proton therapy. But for some adult patients, and for children with treatment-resistant tumors, the technology could fight off cancer better and faster than existing therapies. Dr. Laack wanted to ensure that carbon ion therapy would be available for these patients.  

“Patients with some of the most difficult cancers — the hardest of the hard — come to us for hope and healing,” Dr. Laack says. “It is so important to have all the tools in our toolbox so we can continue offering these patients the very best care.”

The post Precision Without Compromise appeared first on Mayo Clinic Magazine.

Leading the Charge in Carbon Ion Therapy

Laura Vallow, M.D., stands at the forefront of a medical milestone: bringing carbon ion therapy to the United States.

As chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Mayo Clinic in Florida, Dr. Vallow leads a team of physicians, scientists and international collaborators who are advancing research in carbon ion therapy, an advanced cancer treatment that uses high-energy carbon particle beams to precisely target tumors.

“It’s not just another form of radiation,” says Dr. Vallow. “Carbon ions have unique biological properties. Our goal is to unlock that full potential.”

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Small-Town Roots, Big Ambitions

Raised in a small town 35 miles south of Chicago, Dr. Vallow grew up surrounded by family — including 28 cousins, a mom who served as a nurse, an uncle who was the fire chief, and another uncle who was the police chief. Hard work, helping others and service to the community were constant themes.

“There was always this closeness in my family,” she says. “Work and family were intertwined, and they had fun doing it. No one pushed me toward a specific career. Instead, they taught me to find my passion and work hard at it.”

For Dr. Vallow, that passion was science. She attended the University of Illinois where she earned a degree in biochemistry. During her years as an undergraduate student, she joined Argonne National Laboratory, where she worked alongside Ph.D. scientists and presented at national conferences, building the confidence to envision a future in science.

“I realized I could do this — and succeed,” she says. “I was excited for a life of helping and impacting others through science.”

Finding Medicine

Eager to continue her scientific career, Dr. Vallow entered Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University Chicago where radiation oncology quickly captured her interest.

“Radiation oncology has this fascinating technology you get to explore,” she says. “It’s the perfect blend of science, technology and patient care.”

These are diagnoses that too often are a death sentence. Despite decades of work, progress has been limited. Carbon ion therapy gives us a real chance to change that.

— Laura Vallow, M.D.

After completing her residency at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke’s University, she joined Mayo Clinic in 2001. Specializing in breast radiation oncology, Dr. Vallow became a leader in clinical trials and advancing innovations to improve outcomes for patients with breast cancer, such as shorter treatment courses and effective positioning for minimal impact on heart and lungs during treatments. In 2021, she became chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology.

“Once I started at Mayo Clinic, I knew that I never wanted to go anywhere else,” she says. “I love the integration of science and patient care. It’s a wonderful thing to take care of patients in this environment where everyone pushes you to be your best.”

Shattering Limitations

Today, Dr. Vallow no longer runs a single lab. Instead, she oversees multiple research efforts, including collaborations with carbon ion centers in Asia and Europe. At the center of her work is Mayo Clinic’s new integrated oncology building — the Duan Family Building — which will house the nation’s first carbon ion treatment facility.

Current radiation therapy applies a one-size-fits-all approach, using general parameters that don’t account for biological differences between tumors and normal cells. Dr. Vallow wants to change that.

“We envision profiling tumors to understand which patients will benefit most, and at which dose,” she says. “That’s how we’ll shatter current limitations to make treatments more personalized — and more powerful.”

Her department is already advancing this vision. One prospective study, led by colleague Bradford Hoppe, M.D., compares outcomes and quality of life for patients with bone sarcoma receiving traditional care at Mayo Clinic versus those treated at international carbon ion centers.

Through studies like this, the team will extend carbon ion benefits to more people with more types of cancer.

Shaping the Future

Dr. Vallow credits Mayo Clinic’s leadership with taking bold steps to bring carbon ion therapy to the U.S.

“Many institutions have talked about it, but no one has done it,” she says. “Our responsibility is to do this so well and lay out the research so impeccably that others can follow, and together we’ll expand access to carbon ion nationwide.”

Under her leadership, the department is poised to continue to grow as Mayo Clinic opens its doors to patients in need of carbon ion therapy. Dr. Vallow’s vision includes tackling some of the most intractable cancers, such as glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer.

“These are diagnoses that too often are a death sentence,” she says. “Despite decades of work, progress has been limited. Carbon ion therapy gives us a real chance to change that.”

And now, with carbon ion therapy on the horizon, Dr. Vallow’s passion continues to drive her to reshape the future of cancer care.

“I didn’t always know I would end up as a physician researcher, but now, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

The post Leading the Charge in Carbon Ion Therapy appeared first on Mayo Clinic Magazine.

Information overload continues to vex clinicians. The sheer quantity of data available in a patient’s electronic health record (EHR) alone makes it almost impossible to obtain a comprehensive picture of their condition. And while artificial intelligence-enabled algorithms are helping to summarize these reports, it’s not enough.

One solution is to develop a visualization system that quickly puts all the patient’s most important information at a clinician’s fingertips. That information needs to include not just content from the EHR but details on their genetic makeup and environmental exposure to toxins, input from wearables, published systematic reviews and meta-analysis, and so much more. That’s exactly what knowledge graphs (KGs) are designed to do. The latest research demonstrates that these tools are accomplishing that feat. 

What Is a Knowledge Graph? 

A KG is “a network of real-world entities — i.e., objects, events, situations or concepts — and illustrates the relationship between them. This information is usually stored in a graph database and visualized as a graph structure, prompting the term knowledge graph.”   

These visualization tools have a long history in healthcare, dating back to the famous graphic created by the English physician John Snow in the 1800s. As Figure 1 illustrates, he was able to link cholera outbreaks to water pumping stations in London. That connection became crystal clear when one looked at his map. The areas in the city circled in red represented the greatest number of cholera cases, most of which clustered around the Broad Street pump, circled in green.  

The cause-effect relationship between microbe-saturated water and cholera may be obvious to 21st century clinicians, but to Dr. Snow’s colleagues, it was a revelation. Similarly, clinicians and researchers who are deploying knowledge graphs are seeing hidden insights that are having an impact on patient care. 

Why Knowledge Graphs Are Important 

To date, there’s evidence to show that KGs are playing an important role in repurposing drugs so that they can be used to treat conditions they were not originally approved for. They can also improve clinical decision support when linked to EHR data, enabling them to detect hidden patterns, which in turn improve diagnostic predictions and treatment options. There’s also reason to believe KGs can support precision medicine and contribute to clinical research by generating better hypotheses and improving the reasoning process. 

These impressive accomplishments take advantage of a KG’s basic structure, which includes nodes, edges and labels — the so-called triple. As Figure 2 illustrates, nodes can include various types of data, including disease phenotypes, exposure to specific environmental factors, drugs and diet. Edges represent the relationships between these nodes, and labels can be the text used to explain the relationships. They can be as simple as a caption for a table or be more complex, referring to variables plotted on an X and Y axis. 

Figure 2 comes from a group of investigators who created a KG called SPOKE, an acronym for scalable precision medicine open knowledge engine. Their system took advantage of 41 specialized databases, 21 types of nodes and 55 types of edges. These data sources included content from molecular and cell biology, pharmacology, and clinical practice. Morris et al explain: “SPOKE has been used for a variety of biomedical applications including drug repurposing … disease prediction and interpretation of transcriptomic data … among others. More recently, we developed an algorithm to embed electronic health records onto SPOKE, which, when combined with machine learning techniques, enables a wide range of applications relevant to precision medicine.” 

Ziad Obermeyer, M.D., a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, once said: “The complexity of medicine now exceeds the capacity of the human mind.” With the flood of new data resources now available, that complexity has grown exponentially. Well-constructed KGs are “connecting the dots,” helping clinicians manage this information overload. As they find their way into routine medical practice, there’s reason to believe they will improve patient outcomes. 

This article was originally published on Mayo Clinic Platform.

The post A Deeper Dive Into Knowledge Graphs appeared first on Mayo Clinic Magazine.

A Childhood Dream, A Lifelong Mission

When Bradford Hoppe, M.D., was in middle school, he was told to make a collage using magazine cutouts to visualize his future goals. He created an image of a doctor living near the beach.

Today, his artwork has become a reality. Dr. Hoppe serves as a consultant in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Mayo Clinic and lives with his family in Atlantic Beach, Florida. But it’s not just a childhood dream that drives him. After nearly losing both his wife and his father to cancer, he is more determined than ever to transform the future of cancer care.

Following in His Father’s Footsteps

Raised in Los Altos, California, Dr. Hoppe grew up admiring his father’s lifelong career as a radiation oncologist at Stanford Medicine.

Dr. Hoppe says his dad’s work in Hodgkin lymphoma left a lasting impression that made him eager to follow in his footsteps. While traditional radiation could cure the condition, it could also lead to serious long-term side effects such as second cancers or heart complications decades later.

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“I became interested in this idea of optimizing clinical outcomes while minimizing risk of side effects. I knew I wanted to be part of the next generation of radiation therapy,” says Dr. Hoppe.

After earning a B.S. in biology at Stanford University and an M.D. at Cornell University Medical Center, Dr. Hoppe spent a year in Brazil conducting infectious disease and immunology research. He studied the impact of schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease, on the immune system and volunteered at a leprosy clinic.

“The work in infectious disease was really engaging in Brazil. But when I returned home, I knew I wanted to get back to my first passion: radiation oncology. I wanted to continue to advance the field just like my father had done.”

Shifting Coasts, Deepening Focus

After spending most of his life on the West Coast, Dr. Hoppe moved to the East Coast to pursue a radiation oncology residency at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he met his future wife, Sonia.

After completing an M.P.H. at Harvard School of Public Health, the couple then moved to Florida where Sonia began working in radiation oncology at Mayo Clinic and Dr. Hoppe became a faculty member at the University of Florida Health Proton Therapy Institute. There, he held the James E. Lockwood Endowed Chair in Proton Therapy and pioneered the development of proton therapy in the management of lymphoma, thymoma and lung cancer before joining Mayo Clinic in 2019.

“My wife had been working at Mayo Clinic as a radiation therapist for about 10 years before I joined,” says Dr. Hoppe. “When Mayo Clinic announced its plans for particle therapy, I knew it was the right move.”

Reimagining Carbon Ion Therapy

Dr. Hoppe is part of a team at Mayo Clinic that is bringing carbon ion radiation therapy to the United States. Similar to proton therapy, carbon ion can be delivered to a specific depth in the body, reducing damage to critical organs. However, unlike proton therapy, carbon ion causes clustered DNA damage, which is more effective in killing cancer cells, particularly with radiation-resistant cancers, and can be completed in less time than a traditional radiation therapy course. 

Mayo Clinic’s Duan Family Building in Florida will provide advanced cancer treatment options that are currently only available in Asia and Europe. The building opened to patients in July 2025, with the first carbon ion treatment expected to be available by 2028.

We are building upon existing strategies and making them better to shape a new future. And we’re getting closer every day.

— Bradford Hoppe, M.D.

Dr. Hoppe and his colleagues have toured and learned from existing carbon ion centers in Japan, Germany, Taiwan, Korea, Italy and Austria. But it’s not a simple copy-and-paste process.

“Mayo Clinic is approaching carbon ion therapy differently than other institutions,” explains Dr. Hoppe. “Traditionally, carbon ion therapy has been limited to rare, hard-to-treat tumors that don’t respond well to other treatments. But with the advances in precision medicine, we are working to identify patients with radioresistant forms of more common cancers who could benefit.”

Leading an International Collaboration

Dr. Hoppe is leading a collaborative clinical trial with centers in Europe and Asia to compare surgical treatment, proton radiation and carbon ion approaches for patients with pelvic bone sarcomas. The team is studying whether patients being treated with carbon ion therapy have higher cure rates compared with proton therapy and better functional quality of life compared with surgery.

Studies like this one will help experts better understand which cancers would benefit from carbon ion therapy.

“The key is knowing which patients will benefit from which treatments,” explains Dr. Hoppe. “It’s difficult for patients who have already undergone radiation unsuccessfully to jump into carbon ion because we don’t want to exceed radiation dose levels to critical structures and cause more problems for the patient. Our goal is to be able to identify the patients who would do better with carbon ion therapy at the time of diagnosis to improve outcomes and spare them from unnecessary side effects.”

A Mission Fueled by Experience

While Dr. Hoppe has realized his childhood dream, his mission has grown even more meaningful.

“My wife and my father both were diagnosed with metastatic cancers more than five years ago that were expected to be terminal,” says Dr. Hoppe. “Both have undergone cutting-edge, personalized treatments and are in remission.”

Dr. Hoppe is building on his father’s legacy — but also creating his own. His research in bone sarcomas is just the beginning.

“I imagine a future where Mayo Clinic will be able to identify patients most suitable for proton therapy and carbon ion radiation therapy through radiomic and genomic signatures. That means better outcomes, fewer side effects and more lives saved. We are building upon existing strategies and making them better to shape a new future. And we’re getting closer every day.”

The post A Childhood Dream, A Lifelong Mission appeared first on Mayo Clinic Magazine.

The Rise of AI in Healthcare

Alan Turing first coined the term “artificial intelligence” in the 1950s. Two decades later, AI took its initial steps into healthcare, with rudimentary applications emerging in the 1970s. However, it wasn't until recently, with the convergence of advanced technology and vast collections of patient data, that AI truly began to take off in the medical field.

“We happen to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, when the world decided that AI was what we needed to transform medicine,” says John D. Halamka, M.D., M.S., Dwight and Dian Diercks President, Mayo Clinic Platform. Dr. Halamka, also recognized as the Michael D. Brennan, M.D., President's Strategic Initiative Professor, says the current landscape is marked by an abundance of data and a collective willingness to embrace innovation. This has created fertile ground for AI's integration into healthcare.

The Benefits of Using AI in Healthcare

AI is poised to help solve healthcare’s greatest challenges — the growing need for serious or complex care, increased rates of chronic disease, a shortage of healthcare workers, and the explosion of data and technology tools.

Augmenting Human Knowledge

AI technologies can process and synthesize data far more quickly than humans. This rapid analysis allows clinicians to gain actionable, personalized and predictive insights for individual patients. For instance, AI can analyze a patient's medical history, pathology reports and imaging scans in minutes to identify patterns and recommend tailored treatments.

Reducing Inefficiencies

By managing repetitive tasks, AI lets clinicians focus on patient care rather than administrative work. For example, ambient listening technology in exam rooms can generate clinical notes automatically, reducing the burden of paperwork. This shift allows healthcare professionals to spend more time engaging with patients and less time on documentation.

Improving Patient Outcomes

Incorporating AI into clinical workflows can enhance patient outcomes by detecting disease early and expediting drug discovery. AI's ability to analyze complex datasets allows for the identification of subtle indicators of disease, facilitating timely intervention. Additionally, AI-driven drug discovery processes can accelerate the development of new treatments, making them available to patients more quickly.

Healthcare’s AI Applications

Under the broad umbrella of AI, there are several subfields. Machine learning enables systems to learn, adapt and make inferences by identifying patterns in data. Deep learning, a powerful subset of machine learning, mimics the way the human brain processes information to generate accurate insights and predictions. Natural language processing teaches machines to understand and produce human language and text. Cloud computing refers to the use of remote servers on the internet to store, manage and process data efficiently.

These subtypes work in concert to create medical algorithms — sets of rules or sequences designed to solve problems or inform decisions in patient care. Some of the most common algorithm types are:

Predictive AI Models

Predictive AI models analyze vast amounts of data to make predictions based on patterns and trends identified within that data. In healthcare, predictive AI can forecast patient outcomes, disease progression and potential complications by examining historical health records and current patient data. This allows healthcare professionals to make more informed decisions, tailor treatments to individual needs, and intervene proactively to prevent adverse events. Predictive AI leverages machine learning algorithms to continually improve its accuracy, adapting to new data and refining its predictions over time.

Generative AI Algorithms

Generative AI refers to a type of AI that can create new content based on patterns identified from the data on which it is trained. Using deep learning and machine learning, generative AI models understand and mimic the structure of training data to generate new content — from text and photos to technical content like computer code or individualized treatment plans for patients.

Agentic AI Algorithms

This is a type of AI that allows machines to work autonomously toward goals, adapting and learning as they go. This autonomy means the AI system can operate without constant human intervention, making its own decisions and taking actions based on its understanding of its environment and objectives.

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Deploying AI Solutions With Ethics and Safety Built In

Any AI solution that Mayo Clinic considers deploying into its practice must meet a highly rigorous standard of safety and ethics. As a founding member of the Coalition for Health AI, Mayo Clinic has committed itself to responsibly developing and deploying AI solutions in healthcare. Additionally, Mayo Clinic’s Digital Hippocratic Oath requires that within our walls, data, artificial intelligence and clinical knowledge are used for the sole purpose of improving healthcare for all.

The AI models Mayo Clinic staff develop are built and trained on vast and diverse datasets. The goal is to mitigate inherent bias, ensure algorithms are useful to as many patient populations as possible, and make sure algorithms do what they say they will.

Once an AI solution is developed and meets Mayo Clinic’s ethical and safety standards, the solution moves into the deployment stage. In order to be deployed, a solution must be able to do two things:
1. improve care delivery and the patient experience; and 2. seamlessly fit into clinicians’ daily workflows and enhance team efficiency, satisfaction and overall quality of care. Once a solution has proved it can do both things, it is deployed into clinical practice and patient care.

AI’s Future in Healthcare

As AI continues to evolve, its potential applications in healthcare continue to expand. From predictive analytics to personalized medicine, AI's transformative power is just starting to be realized. However, the successful integration of AI into healthcare will require ongoing collaboration between technology developers, healthcare professionals and policymakers.

Guided by Mayo Clinic’s primary value to put the needs of all patients first, the organization is leading in the discovery, validation and deployment of safe and ethical AI to transform medicine. As Mayo Clinic continues to innovate and refine these technologies, the promise of AI in healthcare becomes increasingly attainable, paving the way for a healthier, more efficient and more personalized medical landscape.

The post The Growing Role of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare appeared first on Mayo Clinic Magazine.

Mayo Clinic is leading patient-centered healthcare transformation through our Bold. Forward. strategy, which aims to accelerate the discovery, translation and delivery of more Cures for both chronic and acute diseases; to Connect people with data to create new knowledge and deliver scalable, end-to-end solutions; and to Transform healthcare by creating its first comprehensive, scalable, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled care transformation platform — Mayo Clinic Platform.  

To accomplish true healthcare transformation, we are also transforming our physical spaces through Bold. Forward. Unbound., which reimagines space across all of Mayo Clinic’s campuses by introducing new facilities that combine innovative care concepts and digital technologies, blending inpatient and outpatient care to deliver and scale healthcare in entirely new ways.  

To envision what care can look like in 2030, let’s trace a potential patient’s journey through Mayo Clinic of the future.  

THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE OF THE FUTURE 

Meet Emily, a patient who begins her Mayo Clinic experience hundreds of miles away from Mayo Clinic in Rochester. She is seeking treatment for end-stage liver disease complicated by severe aplastic anemia, a condition in which the bone marrow stops producing enough new blood cells. This complex diagnosis requires both a liver transplant and cell therapy for bone marrow failure. Through a virtual consultation that includes her local doctor and Mayo Clinic specialists, her care team conducts a thorough evaluation, develops a diagnostic and treatment plan, and establishes a trusted, warm relationship with her. 

When it’s time to leave home to travel to Mayo Clinic, Emily receives digital directions, parking instructions and a personalized itinerary through the Mayo Clinic digital interface. The digital interface provides step-by-step navigation from home to her assigned parking ramp, tailored to her appointment and mobility needs. Her itinerary, care team photos and contacts, and visit details are all available in the app, reducing uncertainty and supporting a seamless experience. 

Upon her arrival, a dedicated support team easily recognizes and greets Emily, guiding her to her destination and ensuring she feels confident and cared for at every step. While on campus, Emily becomes part of Mayo Clinic’s “Interconnected Complex Care Neighborhood,” a unique care environment specifically designed for patients with serious and complex conditions like Emily’s.  

Unlike traditional healthcare settings where patients navigate between disconnected departments across a campus, neighborhoods bring together services in one centralized, welcoming environment. The neighborhood features strategically connected, flexible spaces — from the initial consultations to treatment planning to recovery support. These spaces can be reconfigured based on evolving needs. Co-located diagnostic and treatment options mean Emily receives her imaging, lab work and even procedures without going to another building. Most importantly, the neighborhood includes comfortable spaces where she and her family can connect with other patients facing similar journeys, creating a supportive community during her treatment.

Emily’s patient room is filled with natural light and an ergonomic layout, creating a calming environment for Emily and an efficient workspace for her care team. Before caregivers enter her room, a digital entryway display provides instant access to her personal information, with badge scanning for confidentiality. Robotic assistants automate supply delivery for her needs and even deliver her in-room meals. In front of her, an interactive digital whiteboard displays Emily’s daily schedule, upcoming appointments and progress toward going home. Environmental controls allow Emily to adjust the room’s lighting and sound for her comfort, and advanced camera systems quietly monitor her safety and enable virtual visits with loved ones.

Meanwhile, digital technologies and AI operate seamlessly in the background to support Emily and her care team, enhancing rather than interrupting human connections. For example, AI optimizes appointment timing across multiple specialists and digitally delivers relevant patient education material as her care journey progresses, helping her trust and feel confident in the care plan. AI also assists Emily’s care team by organizing clinical information, transcribing and summarizing relevant conversations, and surfacing relevant clinical insights into her complex medication regimen. This technological support means Emily’s team can deliver both compassionate and data-driven care, and she and her family experience a deeply personal, human touch throughout her treatment, recovery and beyond.

HEALING AT HOME 

After her stay at Mayo Clinic, Emily returns home to continue her post-treatment monitoring, thanks to support from her local doctor and connected devices that allow her team to monitor her health status from afar. Digital AI health tools track her vital signs and medication adherence, with alerts sent to her care team when values fall outside normal ranges, when doses are missed or when AI tools detect changes not visible to the human eye.  

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During her virtual check-ins, the team reviews trends in her data and symptoms to identify changes that might indicate complications, prompting adjustments to her monitoring schedule or in-person evaluations. Between visits, her care team stays connected through digital tools, enabling early intervention when concerning patterns emerge — either through in-person support or care from a distance.  

Emily’s journey in 2030 underscores the transformative power of fully integrated physical and digital healthcare services for both patients and care teams. Mayo Clinic continues to build this future through the choices and investments we make today. 

The post Emily’s Story: A 2030 Patient Experience  appeared first on Mayo Clinic Magazine.

Just as Formula One racing teams rely on advanced technology, strong teamwork and meticulous precision, so does Mayo Clinic’s automation strategy.

Anjali Bhagra, M.D., M.B.A., who leads Mayo Clinic’s automation efforts and became a Formula One racing fan thanks to her youngest son, finds parallels between the two. Both have a shared need for high-performance solutions, which require a robust foundational infrastructure.

"In racing, Ferraris cannot succeed if there is no infrastructure,” she says. "It’s the same with healthcare — we must build the roads, and building those is the hard work. Not only is Mayo Clinic building the roads, but the organization is also bringing the Ferraris.”

Dr. Bhagra’s experience watching competitive athletes has instilled in her an appreciation for the dedication, precision and collaborative spirit required to achieve peak performance.

This same mindset is crucial to Mayo Clinic’s work in automation. Mayo Clinic is creating a blueprint for healthcare’s automated future — one that enhances rather than replaces human care, improving outcomes for both patients and healthcare workers.

The Year of Automation

Dr. Bhagra’s interest in automation stems from a personal and professional journey that spans decades of innovation in healthcare.

Her early work in radiology exposed her to the challenges of interpreting massive volumes of imaging data — an experience that highlighted the need for intelligent tools to support clinical decision-making. She began integrating point-of-care technology at the bedside to better assess patients nearly 20 years ago.

"We have all these capabilities,” she says, “but we don’t have the processes in place to put them in the hands of people taking care of patients.”

That’s when, in mid-2023, Mayo Clinic leaders declared 2024 as the “Year of Automation.” Partners from all over the organization came together to strategize how to bring this vision to life with a focus to transform the future of healthcare delivery. They began by establishing four core outcomes to guide their efforts: enhancing patient care and outcomes; improving staff experience and burden reduction; improving operational efficiency and cost reduction; and empowering innovation and engagement.

As part of this effort, leaders identified key areas as testing grounds for pilots, scalable initiatives and transformative innovations.

One initiative is the Virtual Nursing (ViRN) program, an inpatient model for virtual nursing that uses automation to improve various aspects of patient care, including admissions, bedside care and discharge. ViRN resources were integrated into daily operations, drastically reducing manual data entry and alleviating multitasking demands that previously contributed to nurse burnout and turnover.

This initiative improved staff efficiency and morale, enhanced patient safety and care quality, and eased the burden on nurses.

“It’s about letting our staff focus on what matters most — caring for our patients,” Dr. Bhagra says.

Among the more than 100 initiatives that have been implemented across the organization in the past year, Dr. Bhagra is most proud of a project to enhance access for international patients, a group that often faces significant barriers to care.

The intake process for international patients was slow due to its complexity and the diversity of patient backgrounds, languages and medical documentation formats. To address this, Mayo Clinic assembled a multidisciplinary team whose goal was to streamline intake, triage and care coordination using automation and process mining, a data analysis technique used to optimize business processes.

The team focused not only on bringing patients in faster, but also on ensuring they move through the right areas of Mayo Clinic at the right pace to receive the most appropriate care. This includes automating decision trees, language translation and routing mechanisms to reduce delays and improve the patient experience.

“These tools are really bringing that intelligence that humans need to be able to take care of patients better, and that fundamentally is my driver,” says Dr. Bhagra.

Restoring Human Touch

One might think of automation as factory lines or robots replacing humans. But healthcare automation today is far more nuanced — it’s less about replacement and more about augmenting human capabilities, handling repetitive tasks, and freeing people to focus on creative problem-solving and strategic work. In healthcare, it becomes more about the patient.

Healthcare tasks are highly amenable to automation, and thoughtful implementation of automation and AI can significantly enhance human connection with patients.

“I think there is an automation paradox,” Dr. Bhagra says. “Automation and AI — when done right — will bring humanity back in the healthcare experience.”

Many healthcare professionals spend excessive time on administrative tasks such as data entry, ordering and recordkeeping, diverting their attention from patient interaction. Mayo Clinic clinicians have adopted AI-powered ambient listening technology that automatically captures and summarizes patient discussions, freeing them from note-taking tasks that previously disrupted personal interactions.

“If I have automation and AI working in the background, I can offer my real empathy and compassion,” Dr. Bhagra says. “I don’t have to have my mind in two places at the same time — one with the machine and one with my patients.”

By strategically integrating automation, Mayo Clinic is creating a more efficient and compassionate healthcare system, ensuring the human touch remains central to patient care.

The Future of Automation

While the future of automation is bright, Dr. Bhagra, who also leads Mayo Clinic’s Office of Belonging, stresses the importance of fairness, ethics and accountability in developing and deploying automation strategies.

Mayo Clinic’s culture of belonging and innovation distinguishes it from profit-driven organizations. This ethos underpins the commitment to creating safe, effective and equitable healthcare.

It’s a perspective appreciated by her administrative partner, Biju Samkutty, who is chief operating officer of Mayo Clinic’s enterprise automation efforts.

“Dr. Bhagra’s commitment to advancing what’s best for patients is truly inspiring,” Biju says. “She brings both strategic vision and a relentless drive to ensure that innovation translates into real-world impact.”

And with Dr. Bhagra in the driver’s seat, so to speak, Mayo Clinic’s efforts to use automation to drive more humanity into healthcare are well on their way.

“To reach the championship podium, integrating automation takes all of us at Mayo Clinic working together to meet the needs of the patient,” she says. “We’re on the right track.”

The post The Power and Precision of Automation appeared first on Mayo Clinic Magazine.

Discover three ways Platform is translating vision into action — and data into solutions.

‘Virtual Clinical Trials’ Point to New Treatment Options for Heart Failure

Bringing a new drug therapy to market can cost up to $1 billion and take over a decade. As drug testing and approvals slowly unfold, many patients continue to suffer. But what if there was a way to test the ability of existing drugs to treat challenging conditions?

Using data drawn from Mayo Clinic Platform — specifically, the de-identified records of nearly 60,000 patients with heart failure — Nansu Zong, Ph.D., and his team were able to virtually assess the ability of certain already-approved drugs to treat heart failure. Instead of recruiting participants, the team drew on patient records to form control groups. They then used advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models that predict how drugs interact with biological systems to determine outcomes. This approach allowed researchers to rapidly test over a dozen medications already on the market without requiring the lengthy, difficult process of conducting a full clinical trial for each one.

“We’ve shown that within our framework, we can say with high confidence if a drug is likely to succeed or not,” Dr. Zong says. The results of the study have been published in NPJ Digital Medicine.

Mayo Clinic teams are now working to refine this new virtual approach to drug testing. While real-world clinical trials will always be essential, virtual options could help to expand and supplement their findings.

To learn more, visit Mayo Clinic News Network.

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15 Startups Use Platform Data to Shape Solutions

Mayo Clinic Platform regularly accepts promising tech startups into its incubator program, Mayo Clinic Platform_Accelerate. Participants gain access to Platform data — and the insights of Mayo Clinic experts — as they refine their devices, apps, algorithms and other products. The companies below all “graduated” in the April 2025 Accelerate cohort:

• Bloom Standard has developed a device that can be used to provide quick and effective heart and lung ultrasounds for children.
• Ethos uses AI to monitor alcohol use and predict risk of liver disease and other complications.
• OPTT is a digital mental health platform that provides clinicians with validated tools for evaluating and treating patients more effectively.
• Smart Opinion, Inc. uses AI to detect breast cancer earlier, particularly in women with dense breast tissue.
• Splink, Inc. is harnessing the power of AI to deliver earlier diagnoses for brain disorders like dementia, depression and schizophrenia.
• Voythos uses machine learning to help surgeons predict when patients with complex aortic disease may experience complications, allowing for earlier and more effective interventions.

Mayo Clinic Platform_Accelerate aims to speed up the development of innovative healthcare solutions that can improve patient care and transform medicine.

To learn more about these startups and other Accelerate graduates, visit Mayo Clinic News Network.

PlatforMed Conference Generates Patient-Focused Insights

In June 2025, Mayo Clinic hosted more than 250 leaders from healthcare, government, business and academia at the PlatforMed conference in Minneapolis. The goal: To discuss how sharing data and collaborating through platform technologies produces better care for patients. Speaker highlights included:

• John D. Halamka, M.D., M.S., Dwight and Dian Diercks President of Mayo Clinic Platform, who described how platform-based advances will help aging patients consistently access quality care. The automation and accessibility that platform tools deliver will ensure these patients aren’t overlooked in a future where healthcare resources may be more limited.
• Maneesh Goyal, chief operating officer of Mayo Clinic Platform, who discussed how Mayo Clinic Platform is enabling an average of 60 patients a day to receive hospital-quality care at home through the Advanced Care at Home program. He likened this Platform-powered development to a new “virtual floor” connected to existing Mayo Clinic hospitals.
• Patrick Woodard, M.D., M.H.A., of Monument Health, who explained how platform technologies are helping democratize access to care. As chief information officer of a hospital in rural South Dakota, he can use shared data and tools to ensure his patients have access to the same standard of care as patients in major urban centers.
• Deepak Abraham, Ph.D., M.B.A., of King Hamad American Mission Hospital in Bahrain, who discussed how platform technologies are helping providers save time on tasks like data entry, allowing them to spend more time interacting directly with patients. “The doctor-patient relationship is sacrosanct,” he emphasized. “Platform enhances that.”

To hear more from these and other speakers, watch the episode of Tomorrow’s Cure below, which was recorded at the conference.

The post 3 Ways Mayo Clinic Platform Impacts Patient Care appeared first on Mayo Clinic Magazine.

Persistence Pays Off

Gelareh Zadeh, M.D., Ph.D.’s medical career almost ended before it even began. That’s because she went home for lunch during the two-part Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) convinced there was no need to return for the second half of the six-hour-plus exam.

“I told my mom I probably failed. There’s no point in going back,” recalls Dr. Zadeh, the chair of Mayo Clinic’s Department of Neurosurgery in Rochester. “The exam was a lot of new material to me because I had been studying mathematics in college to become an actuary — I had not studied biology or related courses.

“And my mom said, ‘We paid a lot of money for you to try. You should go back for the writing portion.’ Somehow, she convinced me.”

The lesson in persistence proved prescient. Dr. Zadeh, who was recently named the David C. and Flora C. Pratt Distinguished Chief Medical Officer for Mayo Clinic Platform, not only scored well on the MCAT, but also her efforts set the stage for a career in research science and medicine as a world-renowned neurosurgeon.

SHARED PERSPECTIVES

Persistence was key throughout Dr. Zadeh’s childhood. Her family immigrated to Canada from Iran. Her father, an economist, and her mother, a nuclear chemist, settled in Manitoba.

“I watched my mom study really hard,” Dr. Zadeh says. “My parents inspired me to commit myself to whatever I do. I feel most rewarded — whether a project is successful or not — when we complete it together as a team.”

The varying perspectives of her life also gave her an advantage practicing medicine — her ability to understand others and translate it to servant leadership.

“Having lived through revolution, through war, immigration, I’m able to recognize that we each have a very unique perspective,” Dr. Zadeh says. “By nature, we’re all very distinct, and it’s the way we were designed to be. For me it is important to understand each person’s strengths and experiences.”

Dr. Zadeh treats patients with skull base tumors and brain cancers, leading multidisciplinary teams in specialized programs for brain metastases, pituitary disorders and neurofibromatosis. In her research laboratory, she analyzes the molecular signatures of brain tumors, using computational modeling to predict treatment outcomes and identify new therapeutic targets for difficult-to-treat brain cancers.

JOINING MAYO CLINIC

Mayo Clinic’s Department of Neurosurgery stands as one of the world’s most prestigious neurosurgical programs because of its exceptional patient outcomes, groundbreaking research and innovative surgical techniques that have defined excellence in the field for over a century.

The institution performs thousands of complex neurosurgical procedures annually while maintaining complication rates well below national benchmarks, demonstrating how high volume can coexist with superior quality. This achievement reflects Mayo Clinic’s century-long commitment to subspecialty expertise, multidisciplinary collaboration and continuous innovation.

“Mayo Clinic’s brand has been recognized internationally as top ranked, and having the responsibility of being highly regarded helps motivate us to make the next discoveries that improve outcomes, care and experiences for our patients,” Dr. Zadeh says.

“We have an approach that ensures healthcare is delivered safely and at its highest quality, so when the institution recognizes the value of a new direction and implements a new method in medicine, it gains international recognition.”

Mayo Clinic’s investments in artificial intelligence, Mayo Clinic Platform and other strategic priorities swayed Dr. Zadeh to join the staff in 2024 where she is recognized as a William J. and Charles H. Mayo Professor.

“What we have at Mayo Clinic is a vision for the future. We’re trying to be balanced and realistic — but we’re actively thinking about what is possible for our patients and pursuing solutions,” she says. “I arrived at a time where access to Mayo Clinic Platform was now possible by clinicians, and in a few months, we’ve been able to interrogate the data that’s available, which is an unparalleled resource to ask some key clinical questions.

“This year, we had our first clinical trial born out of Platform, which is a huge success and an exciting step forward.”

FORWARD FOCUS

From that fateful lunch hour, Dr. Zadeh ultimately embarked on a career that has advanced brain tumor research and broken barriers, and she now holds a position leading Mayo Clinic to the forefront of neuroscience innovation.

Her persistence has driven her to unparalleled heights as a servant leader and has earned her numerous awards, such as the Canada Gairdner Momentum Award, William E. Rawls Prize from the Canadian Cancer Society, and American Brain Tumor Translational Research Award.

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Dr. Zadeh also holds leadership roles in international organizations, including the Society of Neuro-Oncology, World Federation of Neurological Societies, and International Consortium on Meningiomas, which she co-founded.

“I always tell people I think a negative outcome is just as important, if not more important, than a positive, because the positive is no mystery. We had a hypothesis, and we proved it,” she says. “In the lab the unexpected negative result is what sparks the next questions and drives further investigations.”

Sometimes the most important discoveries come not from success, but from the persistence to continue when everything seems to be going wrong. As Dr. Zadeh learned from watching her parents, the difference between failure and the next breakthrough can be as simple as asking the next question.

The post Persistence Pays Off appeared first on Mayo Clinic Magazine.