Marra Francis

Biography
Dr. Francis is a board-certified Obstetrician and Gynecologist with over 23 years of clinical practice and 18 years of commercial leadership roles across the diagnostics and biotech sectors. She is currently a member of the MIT Catalyst Faculty and is on the medical advisory board for Dama Health. Prior C-suite roles include executive medical director at EverlyWell and chief medical officer at Aspira Womens Health. Dr. Francis prior experience also includes serving as head of medical affairs for women's health of Sema4 (now GeneDx), as well serving as an advisor to Droplet Biosciences, Exai Bio, Myriad Genetics, and Delphi Diagnostics. Earlier in her career, she served as both vice chair and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Memorial Hermann Hospital of the Woodlands.

---

Talk
Liquid Biopsy - Molecular Tools for Cancer Identification
Advances in imaging have improved many types of cancer screening. However, for certain cancers, imaging alone often results in significantly more biopsies than cancers diagnosed. Liquid biopsy is a non-invasive and accessible tool that can refine the identification of patients at risk for cancer after abnormal or indeterminant radiological findings.

Clinical Dx Showcase:
Genece Health, Inc.
At Genece Health, our liquid biopsy approach combines low-pass whole genome sequencing (LP-WGS) with proprietary machine learning techniques. Our goal is to aid clinicians in identifying patients at risk for having cancer after indeterminate or ambiguous imaging studies and screening tests.