About
As a researcher, most of my educational background has been in the areas of science and medicine. I matriculated from the University of Texas with a bachelor’s in biology and a minor in chemistry. From there, I entered the University of Texas Health Science Center in Dallas to receive my medical degree before moving on to clinical training. Residency was with Texas Tech University in Obstetrics and Gynecology before starting a career in oncology at the University of Kentucky. It was there, in Lexington, Kentucky, that I found my initial interest in researching ways in which one might successfully screen for ovarian cancer (those publications are listed in my attached CV). The last thirty some years of my career pathway have been solely in this field of Gynecologic Oncology dealing with cancers unique to women. My partnership with Clemson began around seven years ago working and joining with Dr Terri Bruce, Adjunct Professor, Biological Data Science and Informatics. We are co-investigators attempting to unravel a yet unsolved dilemma of how to effectively screen women for the often lethal diagnosis of ovarian cancer. We have been awarded numerous grants (see CV) and at present are laboring to find a pathway through proteomics and micro-RNA to create a reproducible and inexpensive way to screen women for this highly fatal disease. Our research is ongoing and has been robust during these last number of years given my clinical access to patients combined with her prowess in basic science research.
How their research is transforming health care
The research effort that has brought together Dr Terri Bruce and her team with my own co-workers at Prisma Health, has the potential to be highly transforming in the world of medicine. Presently, ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer death in women with approximately fourteen thousand women succumbing to this disease each year. At present there is no effective screening to find early-stage disease when the cancer still remains quite curable. If we are successful in the endeavor, the effect would be profound not only on a nation-wide basis but on a global one as well. Our hope and goal (to this date we do not know if we will be successful but are hopeful), would be to develop a reproducible, inexpensive, and highly accurate test that could be done in an office setting to accurately screen for this often lethal cancer. We are at the present time, well into our research and have some encouraging findings in our pilot work studying now well over one hundred women. The research is ongoing and has caught the attention of numerous foundations who have invested into our work.
Health research keywords
Ovarian Cancer Screening. Cost effective screening. Early detection of cancer. Exosome analysis.
