Cancer care is about more than biology. Where a patient lives, how far they travel for treatment, and the resources available in their neighborhoods all affect outcomes. The MCW Cancer Center’s Geospatial, Epidemiology, and Outcomes Shared Resource (GEOSR) is harnessing data and mapping tools to bring those realities to the forefront of research. By combining sophisticated technology with a focus on health equity, the team is ensuring discoveries aren't just groundbreaking in the lab but also translate into meaningful impact in the community.
“The power of GEOSR lies in its ability to show us the bigger picture. It provides one-of-a-kind services in geospatial mapping and analysis; support for research using health, administrative, and claims databases; and access to an array of clinical data from patients within the Froedtert & MCW health system, including genomics data,” said Tina Yen, MD, MS, FACS, FSSO, Co-Director, GEOSR.
These capabilities give investigators both the broad view of cancer across populations and the fine-grained detail of how it impacts individuals. From generating data that informs access to advanced treatments to uncovering disparities across communities, GEOSR is laying the foundation for a future where every patient, no matter their background, has a fair chance at the best cancer care available.
Bridging the Gap Between Patients and Clinical Trials
One way GEOSR is turning that vision into action is through the Clinical Trials Access GEOmapping (CTAG) project. Clinical trials are how patients gain access to the most advanced treatments, but participation has long been unequal and often excludes the communities with the highest cancer burden. CTAG uses geospatial data to show where trial enrollment is strong and where it falls short, highlighting underrepresented neighborhoods and guiding strategies to reach them.
“CTAG helps us look at the geography of who is participating in clinical trials. By mapping and analyzing these patterns, we can see where gaps exist and work closely with the Clinical Trials Office (CTO) and Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) team to close them,” said Kirsten Beyer, PhD, MPH, MS, Co-Director, GEOSR.
Early results highlight the importance of this approach. “Some preliminary findings have confirmed what we suspected: clinical trial enrollments within the City of Milwaukee are not where they should be, given the population-level burden of cancer in the city,” explained Daniel Sanfelippo, MPH, Epidemiologist, GEOSR. “There is a need to make our clinical trials known to Milwaukee residents so they have access to the best cancer care available.”
Soon, CTAG data will be included in the Cancer Center’s regular reviews of trial participants by the Scientific Review Committee and the Clinical Research Executive Committee. This will help identify gaps and guide changes so that cancer trials are more accessible and equitable.
This work aligns with other GEOSR-supported projects, including research led by Dr. Beyer that showed how redlining—mortgage discrimination based on neighborhood location—was linked to poorer breast cancer survival among older women. Together, CTAG and the redlining study illustrate how GEOSR is uncovering structural barriers to care and providing the data needed to address them.
Data that Drives Discovery
Supporting CTAG and many other projects is GEOSR’s Integrated Cancer Data Resource (ICDR). ICDR links patient-level information such as electronic health records, genomic sequencing, and imaging with population-level data, allowing researchers to study how social and biological factors intersect. For CTAG, ICDR staff retrieve data from the Clinical Research Data Warehouse, provide coding and analytic support, and are developing an interactive map that will let researchers examine enrollment patterns alongside neighborhood features such as transportation or food access.
“The ICDR completes our ‘data picture’ by adding access to clinical data to GEOSR’s provision of population-based data. That way, we can support cancer researchers whether they’re interested in precision medicine or in community-level outcomes,” said Anai Kothari, MD, MS, Co-Director, GEOSR.
ICDR is powering other forward-thinking projects, including Triomics, a collaboration with the CTO and Clinical and Translational Science Institute of Southeast Wisconsin. The pilot study uses a large language model (LLM) called OncoLLM to automate patient-trial matching. By scanning patient data quickly and accurately, the platform can connect people to trials in a fraction of the time it would take manually. Together, GEOSR and ICDR are transforming how patients are connecting to advanced therapies.
Mapping the Road Ahead
GEOSR is also investing in the future of cancer research, with training as a growing focus. The team recently purchased 50 ArcGIS licenses, now offered free of charge to MCW faculty, staff, and students, so more investigators can incorporate geospatial tools into their work.
“We achieve more when we collaborate,” said Kristyn Ertl, MPH, Program Manager, GEOSR. The team works closely with state and national registries, other Cancer Center Shared Resources, and external partners to provide accurate cancer burden data and tackle challenges such as secure data storage and advanced computing power. With the move into the new Center for Cancer Discovery, GEOSR will have even greater opportunities to partner across basic, translational, and clinical science. That integration will accelerate the use of data to guide discovery and care.
Looking ahead, GEOSR and the ICDR are setting their sights on bold advances: building the infrastructure for universal sequencing of all cancer patients, integrating powerful new datasets like mass spectrometry, and applying artificial intelligence to complex, unstructured data. Each step is about sharpening the precision of research while making sure those advances reach patients in every community.
“Our team is helping researchers see cancer from every angle,” said Dr. Yen. “We can trace the broad patterns that shape entire communities and at the same time identify the obstacles faced by individual patients. That perspective is what turns data into action and makes equity in cancer care possible.”
Learn more about GEOSR.