TRANSPERS News: Recent JAMA Publication, Additional Publications, Collaborators at Conferences and Meetings, a Congratulations, Team Update

Dear Colleagues:

Happy summer from beautiful San Francisco. In this issue, we highlight contributions made at recent conferences by TRANSPERS contributors and the latest TRANSPERS publications, including a JAMA Viewpoint on the state of state biomarker testing insurance coverage laws. Also, we’re delighted to announce a TRANSPERS collaborator’s recent award, and we welcome the newest addition to our team, Danea Horn, PhD.

Do you have an announcement you would like to see in our next newsletter? Let us know!

Kathryn

JAMA Publication by TRANSPERS Collaborators Addresses Rapid Emergence of State Biomarker Testing Insurance Coverage Laws

Increasing numbers of states have created legislation that mandates coverage of biomarker testing. Recently, TRANSPERS collaborators Grace Lin, Janet Coffman, and Kathryn Phillips published their review of legislation from 15 states in JAMA. This study found that although legislation may improve access, its impact may be limited by lack of reach and implementation challenges. Kathryn Phillips discussed the findings recently with the UCSF School of Pharmacy and was quoted as saying, “A lot of states were putting out these new laws, but no one was looking to see why they came about, and what are they going to do,” Phillips said. “We conclude that we need to follow up to see the results of these mandates, as opposed to just blindly passing more and more mandates.”

Additional Publications: Disparities and Implementation

Emily Mrig, TRANSPERS collaborator, and her colleague published an article in Social Science & Medicine that provides examples of how academic research institutions can promote more inclusive scientific communities and types of research.

Deborah Marshall, TRANSPERS Scientific Board Member, and other authors at TRANSPERS and global institutions assessed critical considerations for the clinical implementation of genomic sequencing in an article published in Health Affairs Scholar.

Cheng Chen, former TRANSPER post-doctoral fellow, and other TRANSPERS collaborators published in Molecular Diagnosis & Therapy their findings that circulating tumor DNA testing demonstrated diagnostic accuracy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients and that sensitivity varied by driver mutation.

TRANSPERS Collaborators Present at Ethics, Policy, and Methods Conferences and Meetings

Several TRANSPERS collaborators presented at ELSIcon2024 - the 6th ELSI Congress hosted at Columbia University - and participated in the annual Global Economics and Evaluation of Clinical Genomics Sequencing Working Group (GEECS) meeting.

Deborah Marshall and Kathryn Phillips participated in a discussion on global perspectives on implementing clinical genomic sequencing equitably, effectively, and efficiently.

Collaborator Grace Lin Receives Funding to Study Cancer Screening in Older Adults

TRANPSERS contributor Grace Lin received a UCSF Resource Allocation Program grant to study personalized cancer screening recommendations in older adults. Congratulations Grace!

TRANSPERS Welcomes Danea Horn, PhD, as Professional Researcher

The UCSF Department of Clinical Pharmacy and TRANSPERS welcome their newest Professional Researcher, Danea Horn, PhD. Dr. Horn obtained her PhD in Economics from UC Davis in 2021 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Before getting her PhD, Danea wrote a book, Chronic Resilience, a personal examination of the patient experience. Danea's areas of interest are health economics, technology, pharmaceuticals, decision-making, and disparities.