Center for Individualized Medicine

Individualized medicine is just changing the way we practice. It's bringing an entirely new way of looking at the patient and looking at healthcare. There's a huge number of patients out there that have existed with rare and undiagnosed diseases, and for decades they had no answer. And now we've seen a revolution through individualized medicine that allows us to diagnose many of those patients, and truly transform their lives.

Today we're generating an enormous amount of data, and therefore we need computational expertise to be able to take all those pixels of data, all those bits of data, and put them together in a way that we can understand the puzzling situation of some diseases that affect patients.

One of the most important things we've come across is actually the education of the workforce. We need to educate our investigators so that they can understand the power of what the data can do as they're working toward these new discoveries. But just as much so, we need to educate our health care providers, so that when they're presented with this data and these opportunities to change the way they manage patients, they know what it means and they know how to react to that data.

We like to excite our researchers and technicians because this is what creates new discoveries, new opportunities.

You get it and you learn and you see things that you didn't even think were possible or you didn't even know existed, and it just lights up your imagination. This is a chance to do something that you're passionate about and change patients' lives. And that is really a tremendous thing.

From providing the best individualized care, to addressing the world's most challenging healthcare problems, Mayo researchers here at the Center are relentlessly pursuing discoveries that deliver hope and better health to people today, and for generations to come. Thank you.

Jennifer B. Tenley, M.S.N., R.N., Genetic Nurse: I'm a Rochester native. I was born and raised here. I started my nursing career over 15 years ago at St. Mary's Hospital, and I became interested in joining clinical genetics after covering a staff's medical leave.

It's like unrolling a massive ball of yarn — there's so much to discover. We, the two other nurses and I are learning how to spread our wings and fly with our teammates, our genetic counselors, geneticists, laboratories and specialty providers who care for and educate our patients and their families.

We help to construct the family trees, review the charts for the patient referrals, and send out orders for visits and tests with our providers. We assist with treatment plans by coordinating medications, infusions, monitoring lab results and tests. We also help coordinate genetic testing obtained from skin biopsies and tissue samples from surgery in the OR.

It is a busy place with lots going on at any one time, and we rely on our colleagues within our institution to help take care of our complex patients. I want the very best for the patients who travel from near and far, as we all have so much to learn from each other in our very vast and somehow small world.

Jennifer Kemppainen, M.S., CGC, Genetic Counselor: I grew up in a small town in the Midwest and had a desire to pursue a career in health care. I began my college education as a human biology major, while I explored multiple career options, including nursing, physician assistant, and physical therapist.

I had the opportunity to shadow a local genetic counselor. This experience was inspiring. I found a profession that allowed me to incorporate aspects of education, patient advocacy, and science. This set me on my trajectory for graduate school.

After graduation and board certification, genetic counselors may work in a variety of settings, including: direct patient clinical care, genetic testing laboratories, education, or research. The field is continuing to expand, and it's motivating to see the evolving roles and opportunities for genetic counselors.

As a genetic counselor, I connect with patients and health care professionals, discuss genetic testing options, explain genetic diagnoses, and review risks for family members. A rewarding aspect of this profession is having the opportunity to impact patients and their families. Finding an answer, understanding risk, and connecting the dots for a family is incredibly impactful.

It's been exciting to see the developments in genetic testing, technology, and potential changes for medical intervention and treatments in the future. The field of genetics is constantly changing and there's always something new to learn. If you love science, teaching and working with people, a career in genetic counseling may be an option for you.

Maddie J. Zappa, Genetic Counseling Assistant: I grew up in the Midwest surrounded by the quality care of Mayo Clinic. As I began college, I was under the impression that being a science major meant I had to be a doctor or work in a lab. I had no idea that a genetic counseling assistant was a career I could pursue.

However, after two years of working as a desk operations specialist at Mayo Clinic, I came across the genetic counseling assistant position where I could use my Bachelor's degree in science, work directly with patients and participate innovative research projects.

A genetic counseling assistant has many responsibilities — handling administrative tasks, triaging patients, ordering and tracking genetic testing, giving scripted education to patients, and constructing family pedigrees. The most important goal though, is to assist the genetic counselor to increase their capacity to reach more patients.

Many people in this role plan to use the experience to eventually become a genetic counselor. However, I personally find being a genetic counseling assistant to be a unique challenge, and rewarding in every sense of the word.

It is a constantly evolving career that has endless opportunities for growth. Because of this, I cannot see myself doing anything else. The patients I see come from all over the world to experience the amazing care Mayo Clinic has to offer. Genetics is fast evolving in today's world, and I am honored to be part of its growth at Mayo Clinic.

Karen M. Meagher, Ph.D., Bioethicist: I remember when I was an undergraduate, I was a biology major and I loved science. I wasn't one of those people that has this driving passion and fascination to dive deep and become a specialist. But rather, my drive for knowledge is more like pulling along many different threads to see how everything interconnects, not just including our genetics and our bodies, but also our beliefs, our values and our cultures.

There's no one way to become a bioethicist, because the entire point of our field is to appreciate all ways of knowing and all knowers. And, that's what's exciting about being a bioethicist is that our collaborations are incredibly creative teams.

For example, on one project I'm learning new things from a geneticist, and I'm hearing about their concerns, about how to communicate this incredibly new finding to patients. On another, I might help support an infectious disease physician working on developing very cutting edge precision treatment. And, I hear the stories of patients' journeys, so that those experiences might be integrated into new forms of care.

What I do as a bioethicist is try to bridge all these worlds. So, I still get to be excited about molecules, but I'm also broadly focused on the humanity of our patients, our researchers and our care teams.

We work together to try and find new solutions that protect privacy, address concerns about commercialization, mitigate stigma, and encourage more equity in our healthcare system.

My love for learning started early, as a kid. I always loved science and mysteries. Science was one of my favorite subjects. My teachers said I was the only one who could be an astrophysicist.

Even into college, medicine wasn't on my radar, despite being told it should be. I majored in computer science my first year, but after spending a summer working in my dad's pharmacy, I recognized that I needed to work with people. I didn't think I wanted to follow in his footsteps until that summer. I changed my major to pharmacy and, after thinking about where I could make the most difference, decided to pursue medicine. I was accepted into Mayo Clinic’s first M.D.-Ph.D. class and combined my interest in medicine and pharmacology.

Dr. Richard Weinshilboum was one of my mentors. My Ph.D. project focused on pharmacogenetic drug interactions and drug metabolism. At that time, pharmacogenomics was not a word in my vocabulary, but it was on the horizon. As a lifelong learner and strong advocate of evidence-based medicine, it was inevitable that as the field of individualized medicine evolved, I was going to embrace it as a way to provide the best medicine for my patients.

As an internal medicine physician and educator, working with patients and discussing pharmacogenomics in genomics is the perfect blend. I'm fond of saying when I talked with Dr. Weinshilboum, that the idiosyncratic responses that were mysteries in the past were probably just gene-drug interactions we didn't yet know about.