Mayo Clinic, Thermo Fisher embarking on collaboration in One Discovery Square

One Discovery Square will have a new tenant this spring, Mayo Clinic officials said Wednesday — welcoming a leading medical diagnostic firm to the top floor of the four-story building.

Dr. William Morice, president of Mayo Clinic Laboratories, said Thermo Fisher Scientific’s second Rochester location (in addition to its office on 18th Street NW) will be based inside the Advanced Diagnostics Laboratory on the third floor of One Discovery Square. Roughly a dozen people from Thermo Fisher will work out of the space.

Mayo says it hopes the collaboration will speed up the clinical trial process for new technology being developed in DNA sequencing, mass spectrometry, and immunology diagnostics — making it easier to measure and track important statistics related to blood, allergy, and autoimmune disorders. 

Dr. Morice adds the partnership will utilize both organizations’ strengths: Mayo will provide the outlet to pilot and experiment with new technologies, while Thermo Fisher provides the vehicle to get the technology into the public sphere.

“We want to define those breakthroughs in our environment and make them accessible,” said Dr. Morice. “[Communication] will be partially digital, so we can create and stream information with other labs, but it’s also about making this technology available elsewhere in other hospital systems.” 

While Thermo Fisher operates hundreds of locations around the world, Gianlucca Petitti, senior VP and president of specialty diagnostics at Thermo Fisher, said Rochester represented a combination of academic and research excellence — key factors which spurred them to expand its presence in the city.

“We feel there’s an ecosystem brewing here that is conducive to excellence in what we do,” said Petitti. “On top of that, Mayo Clinic and Thermo Fisher both have global access, so everything that is developed here will have a global reach.” 

While the laboratory won’t be fully up and running for another six weeks or so, the first evidence of the partnership are already present in the community: Rochester Public Schools has partnered with Thermo Fisher to use a pilot program of the AerosolSense Sampler, which uses PCR testing capabilities — the same technology in a regular nasal swab Covid test — to measure levels of the virus in the air.

In the years to come, the technology could be used to measure levels of other airborne viruses like the flu. Clinic officials also say the two parties are already researching ways to “provide diagnostic solutions” for a wide variety of afflictions, including myeloid leukemia and various autoimmune diseases.

New Health System president named

Also Wednesday morning, Mayo announced Dr. Prathibha Varkey would become the new president of Mayo Clinic Health System, effective August 16. She will become the leader of the Clinic’s satellite operations across the broader Upper Midwest, including seventeen hospitals in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

Dr. Varkey

Dr. Varkey, an internal medicine doctor, will assume the position after spending five years as president and CEO of Northeast Medical Group, a subsidiary of Yale New Haven Health in Connecticut. She is not new to Rochester, however — having previously spent 11 years at the Clinic as a physician.

“I admire and respect the relentless pursuit of excellence and patient centered care at Mayo Clinic, and I am excited to come back to what feels like home,” said Dr. Varkey.

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.