Mobile Research Vehicle Visits Mayo Clinic's Florida Campus for Cancer Study
The Mayo Clinic CTSA's mobile research vehicle recently made the journey from Rochester, Minn., to Florida to begin a two-month, 12-event trek around Jacksonville. This is the vehicle's first trip to the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida.
Gerardo Colon-Otero, M.D., chair of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Mayo Clinic's campus in Florida, is using the van to educate area residents about cancer prevention and the importance of minority participation in research. Additionally, he is conducting a study investigating how frequently an abnormal protein is found in the blood of the northeast Florida population. Dr. Colon-Otero also hopes to determine whether that population has an acquired genetic abnormality in the blood that is associated with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer that affects African-Americans and people over age 50 more than any other group.
Used for education and data collection for clinical trials and other research studies, the van is a self-contained, mobile research facility with two exam rooms, a laboratory, private areas for patient interviews and audiovisual equipment for patient education. By going out into the community to area African-American and Hispanic churches, the vehicle will enable Mayo Clinic researchers to include more community members and more diverse populations in clinical research studies.
The Mayo Clinic CTSA added the mobile research vehicle to its resources in 2008. The vehicle was funded, in part, through a grant from the National Center for Research Resources, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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