ISSUED: 1 March 2021
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Shepherd University’s President’s Lecture Series will present a virtual talk titled “Precision Medicine Improves the Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer” by Dr. Michael L. Nickerson, chief executive officer at Precision Medicine Consulting, LLC on Tuesday, March 23, at 6:30 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public and will take place on Zoom.
During the lecture, Nickerson will seek to educate the public about the role of genetics, genomics, and sequencing in improving the diagnosis and treatment of disease, including cancer. Nickerson will discuss disease-associated genes and mutations, healthy and tumor genome characteristics, and how sequencing provides the basis for highly accurate disease diagnosis. Improved treatment of cancer using tumor genome sequencing demonstrates the advantage of matching therapeutic choice to patient-specific mutations.
Nickerson will review recent clinical trials and Food and Drug Administration approvals, including those at the National Cancer Institute in which he is currently enrolling patients who are diagnosed with bladder cancer.
Nickerson performed genetic analysis of patients and families diagnosed with cancer for more than 20 years as a scientist at the National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health. He discovered several cancer-associated genes, including the Birt-Hogg-Dube gene altered in patients diagnosed with Birt-Hogg-Dube Syndrome and kidney cancer, BRCA gene mutations in patients with bladder cancer, and TET2 gene mutations in patients with prostate cancer. Precision Medicine Consulting provides seminars to universities, medical centers, and communities, and assists patients and families with medical genetics options and outcomes.
For more information or to register, contact Karen Rice, director of Lifelong Learning, at krice@shepherd.edu.
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