Dr. Bernadette Reyna Asuncion is Pathologist and Research Instructor at the Dr. Fred Hirsch Biomarker Analysis Laboratory. Her previous studies included a profile of thymic epithelial tumors, presented during to the American Association for Cancer Research Convention (2010), in Houston, Texas. She has participated in the International Association on the Study of Lung Cancer in San Francisco, California (2009) and Seoul, South Korea (2007). In the latter, she was granted "Developing Nations Award" for a 30-year study in thoracocardiovascular tumors, pathology of rare vascular tumors (angiosarcomas, pulmonary sclerosing and intracardiac hemangiomas) and arteriovenous malformations of the thorax and mediastinal tumors. In 2009, she presented on the pathology of rare anterior mediastinal thymic tumors. Also in 2007, she was an International Grant recipient of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry with exposure at the National Institute of Health in Washington, D.C., U.S.A. and, she was granted “Patient Advocacy Grant Award” by the American Society of Cytotechnology for initiating a “Cytopathology Medical Mission in the Philippines”, which aimed to cytologically screen and diagnose malignancy in 2000 indigent patients. In 2004, she co-presented a report on malignant pleural effusions in Singapore. Likewise, her paper on the evaluation of acute chest pain and cardiac enzymes such as troponins and myoglobin was presented and published during the 8th International Asian Society of Clinical Pathologists and Laboratory Medicine. She received a “Young Investigator’s Award” during the 22nd World Congress of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in Busan, South Korea in 2003, for her research on the declining autopsy rates in the Philippine Heart Center. The same paper was published in the International Proceedings of the World Association of Societies of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Three of her papers presented and published during the 3rd International Academy of Pathologists Asia Pacific Meeting in 2003 included primary systemic amyloidosis presenting as cardiac arrhythmia with pulmonary embolism and rare thoracocardiovascular tumors, such as intracardiac rhabdomyosarcoma and malignant fibrous histiocytoma. Dr. Reyna Asuncion has worked mainly in thoracocardiovascular pathology and oncology during and after her stint as a Pathologist, Clinical Research Fellow and Pathology Resident since 1997.