George Vasmatzis

George Vasmatzis, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and co-director of the Biomarker Discovery Program at Mayo Clinic's Center for Individualized Medicine. He holds dual appointments in the Department of Molecular Medicine and the Department of Quantitative Health Sciences. His work focuses on translating biomarker discoveries into clinical applications through next-generation sequencing and nanopore sensor technology. Dr. Vasmatzis leads a multidisciplinary team of bioinformaticians, molecular biologists, and clinicians to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment stratification.

Education: PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University, MS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, BS in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech University. Postdoctoral training at NIH's Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Boston University.

Research Interests

• Biomarker identification for cancer diagnosis
• Genomic analysis of tumor progression and metastasis
• Nanopore-based DNA detection systems for early cancer detection
• Allelic dependence in gene mutations
• Individualized medicine through genomic profiling

His lab collaborates with Rashid Bashir (University of Illinois) on nanopore sensor development, recently demonstrating methylated DNA detection in colon cancer samples. This work has spurred clinical interest in stool-based colorectal cancer screening.

Awards

• 2023 Innovation Accelerator Award (Mayo Clinic)
• NCI advisory roles (2008-2010)

Grants & Labs

Principal investigator on NIH-funded projects including the "CORE--GENE DISCOVERY BIOINFORMATICS" (2000-2002) and the SPORE in Prostate Cancer (2001-2013). Leads the Vasmatzis Lab focused on clinical translation of genomic discoveries.