Dr. Molly Taylor is a pediatric oncologist and a principal investigator at Seattle Children’s Research Institute who specializes in translational biobehavioral research. Physical and mental health are closely connected, and this is especially true for young persons with cancer. Teenage cancer patients have high rates of anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues, which have in turn been associated with cancer relapse and death rates. The immune and nervous systems are important links between the mind and the body, and psychological stress can activate the fight-or-flight response, which then creates a specific genetic pattern in immune cells. This pattern can cause inflammation and may be responsible for some poor outcomes in cancer.

Dr. Taylor’s research will use wearable technology, genomic analysis, and surveys to explore whether the nervous system activation and molecular response pattern associates with altered immune cell function and with mental health symptoms. With an understanding of the biology of how an adolescent’s mental state affects the cancer in their body, novel targeted psychosocial and pharmacologic therapies aimed at the stress response can be developed. This new type of ‘precision supportive care’ will improve both psychological and cancer outcomes in these vulnerable young patients.