Seminar - Dr. Roger Bertholf
Medical Director of Clinical Chemistry at Houston Methodist Hospital, and Professor of Clinical Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical School
Thursday, October 7th
6:30 - 8:00 pm
via Zoom
Zoom meeting link will be sent to registered participants by email.
Seminar Flyer
6:30 pm - Networking
7:00 pm - Seminar & Questions
The Predictive Value of Medical Laboratory Tests: Why Tumor Markers Have Been Such a Disappointment
Since cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the United States, considerable research has focused on prevention, detection, and treatment of the disease. Successful treatment of cancer nearly always depends on early detection, before the tumor spreads beyond its primary site. Beginning around a half-century ago, biochemists began searching for circulating biomarkers of neoplastic disease, with the hope that routine screening could detect tumors that were pre-symptomatic and more responsive to surgical, radiological, or chemotherapeutic interventions. While the prospect of detecting clinically silent cancer with a simple blood test is alluring, in practice tumor markers perform relatively poorly when used to screen for cancer in healthy, asymptomatic patients. In this seminar, we will explore the reasons why that is the case.
Biography: Roger Bertholf is Medical Director of Clinical Chemistry at Houston Methodist Hospital, and Professor of Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical School. Dr. Bertholf received a M.S. in Analytical Chemistry and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Virginia, and following fellowships in clinical chemistry and neuropathology research, he spent 30 years on the faculty of the University of Florida College of Medicine before moving to Houston and his present position in 2017. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Chemistry, with certificates in clinical chemistry and toxicological chemistry, and is a fellow and past president of the Academy of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry. He is also a fellow and past president of the Association of Clinical Scientists. Dr. Bertholf is Editor in Chief of Laboratory Medicine, a publication of the American Society for Clinical Pathology and Oxford University Press. He has been a member of the American Chemical Society since 1981.
