In response to: A New Way To See Cancer
Current issue
July 2025
On the cover: Wilton Virgo ’00 and his classmates celebrate during the P-rade.
On the cover: Wilton Virgo ’00 and his classmates celebrate during the P-rade.
The recent feature “A New Way To See Cancer” profiled the outstanding scientific and clinical work of Dr. Ryan Corcoran ’99, as well as other alumni including Dr. Julia Beaver ’01, Graham Read ’15, Dr. David Henry ’70, Dr. Chloe Atreya ’98, Dr. Anne Chiang ’87, Dr. Lauren Mauro ’02 and others who have been leaders in the use of DNA sequencing and “liquid biopsy” as a new advance in cancer diagnosis. To that list we would like to add Dr. Michael Berger ’01 whose team developed the liquid biopsy test MSK-ACCESS using ultra-deep sequencing of 146 key cancer-associated genes based on an FDA cleared panel he developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) called MSK-IMPACT. These panels detect changes in the tumor genome that can be targeted for therapy. MSK IMPACT has now been used to care for over 125,000 individuals with cancer, and has had a broad scientific impact on our field. At the most recent meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research, Mike was honored with the “Team Science Award” for leading this pathbreaking work.