Big Data and Consortium Leadership Helps Hertz Fellow Tackle Disparities in Women’s Cancers

Compared with non-Hispanic white women, Black women are less likely to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. But if diagnosed, they tend to fare worse—and the difference in survival is becoming starker, with ovarian cancer survival rates rising for white women and dropping for Black women in recent years.

To understand the roots of this disparity and others like it, Hertz Fellow Francesmary Modugno is turning to large, broad data sets that capture not only the molecular characteristics of patients’ ovarian tumors but sociodemographic information and detailed medical records as well. It is the latest project that has brought together Modugno’s expertise in computer science and epidemiology with her passion for addressing women’s health disparities.

“Ovarian cancer is challenging because we have few ways to prevent it and no effective way to screen for it,” says Modugno, who is a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and Magee-Womens Research Institute.

Modugno, a first-generation high school graduate, loved math growing up and—thanks to supportive high school teachers and counselors who guided her toward college—went to Cornell University to major in math. There, she discovered computer science and was encouraged to pursue a graduate degree in the burgeoning field. She earned a Hertz Fellowship to study computer science at Carnegie Mellon, giving her the freedom to pursue off-the-beaten-path programming projects, she says.

Midway through her Ph.D., however, Modugno was sidelined for nearly 18 months after being hit by a car. While she was living at home to recover, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Modugno became a firsthand witness to the challenges of cancer treatment and recovery.

“It was really brutal to watch,” she says. “And when I started to ask doctors about what I could do to lower my own odds of developing breast cancer, their answers were really unsatisfying.”

The experience reshaped Modugno’s interests; she decided that she wanted to pivot from computer science to medicine, with the hope of understanding what makes some people more prone to cancer and how to develop new ways to intervene. After finishing her PhD and working briefly as a computer science faculty member, she went back to school to train as a cancer epidemiologist.

Today, it is considered routine for cancer epidemiology studies to include many diverse data points that span bodily systems, genetics, and environmental factors, with the goal of pinning down what influences cancer risk. In the late 1990s, this kind of massive data collection was less common. But with her computer science background, Modugno saw the benefits of big data. 

“I kept trying to get grants funded for projects where I looked simultaneously at many factors that could contribute to cancer,” she says. “But back then, everyone was looking at one factor at a time. No one understood what I was trying to do.”

Still, Modugno forged forward, earning a position at the University of Pittsburgh and becoming one of the first researchers to differentiate between subtypes of ovarian cancer, rather than assume that all tumors in the ovaries must be identical. 

She also helped found the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (OCAC), a worldwide group of ovarian cancer researchers that pools data and resources. Ovarian cancer is much rarer than many other cancers (only about 1 percent of women are ever diagnosed with ovarian cancer, compared to 13 percent for breast cancer), making it hard to organize large, statistically powerful studies without bringing together researchers from different institutions. Like the Hertz Foundation, OCAC helps facilitate these kinds of potent collaborations. 

“No one researcher or one institution could put out the groundbreaking kind of work that OCAC has been able to,” Modugno says. 

Recently, Modugno and her collaborators have shown that women who ovulate more times during their lifetimes have higher ovarian cancer risk, that people living in disadvantaged neighborhoods have worse ovarian cancer outcomes, and that hormone treatment for breast cancer is associated with a lower risk of dementia later in life. 

Now, she has ongoing projects harnessing big data to explain racial disparities in cancer outcomes and is using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict how patients will respond to different treatments based on CT scans of their cancer. “I’m really fascinated by how technology is coming together with medicine to advance the field,” she says. 

Modugno is also passionate about passing forward what she has learned—about cancer as well as a career in science—to the next generation. She wants science education to be accessible for everyone, whether or not they live in a top-ranked school district and whatever their socioeconomic background. 

“A lot of students who come from a background like mine end up slipping through the cracks,” she says. “They don’t have parents helping them with their homework, and they don’t have people coaching them on how to ace interviews.”

Modugno has not only mentored countless students at the University of Pittsburgh, but oversees the Ovarian Cancer Specialized Program in Research Excellence Career Enhancement  and Developmental Research Programs and previously worked as a National Science Foundation program officer. Alongside her husband, Dr. Jeffrey Eppinger, she also is a loyal annual supporter of the Hertz Fund, making unrestricted gifts that directly impact the work of students who are similarly pushing the boundaries of science and technology through their own research. “I think it’s extremely important to keep foundations like Hertz going because it provides support and independence to exceptional students of any background,” she says.

Founded in 1957, the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation accelerates solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges, from enhancing national security to improving human health. Through the Hertz Fellowship, the Foundation identifies the nation’s most promising young innovators and disruptors in science and technology, empowering them to become future leaders who keep our country safe and secure. Today, a community of more than 1,300 Hertz Fellows are a powerful, solution-oriented network of our nation’s top scientific minds, working to address complex problems and contributing to the economic vitality of our country. Learn more at hertzfoundation.org.