“Patient Introduction to Biomarker Fundamentals” (Joleen White, PhD)

Join Us Online for “Patient Introduction to Biomarker Fundamentals”

Curious about biomarkers and what they mean for your health and cancer care? Joleen White, PhD, will break down the basics in a friendly, easy-to-understand way. This online event is perfect if you want to get the inside scoop on how biomarkers work and why they matter.

Cancer care today can feel like trying to drink from a firehose of information. You may hear about gene tests, tumor markers, or lab reports filled with new terms, and it can be hard to know what really matters for you or your loved one. It’s completely normal to feel confused or even overwhelmed by all these new concepts and terms — many people do. One term you will hear a lot in cancer care is about your "biomarkers". Biomarkers are measurable indicators (like blood pressure, genes, or proteins) which can help diagnose, monitor, and predict health conditions, such as specific genetic mutations that can contribute to cancer. This session is here to help slow things down and make sense of what "biomarkers" mean, so you can feel more informed and confident when talking with your care team.

Joleen White, PhD, is uniquely qualified to lead a discussion on biomarkers and how they are used in managing cancer. She is a Senior Consultant with BioData Solutions, LLC, where she helps biopharmaceutical teams design practical, patient-focused strategies for testing how new medicines behave and how the body may respond. Over the years, she has worked on many types of medicines at organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute, EMD Serono, Biogen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and BioMarin. Her interest in science began early, fueled by a love of math and a deep curiosity about how things work, including paper airplane competitions with her dad. That same curiosity now drives her passion for making complicated data feel clearer and more approachable for others, and she stays actively involved in global scientific groups where she works with others to improve how data are analyzed and shared to ultimately support better outcomes for people living with serious illnesses.

The goal is to give you the tools to ask good questions and feel empowered in your care journey. Please join this conversation to understand:

• The language doctors use when they talk about biomarkers — what words like “predictive” and “prognostic” mean,
• How scientists figure out whether a test result helps guide treatment decisions,
• The difference between “correlation” and “causation”, and
• What makes a test reliable, including ideas like “sensitivity” (true positives) and “specificity” (true negatives).