Magpie Diagnostics is an educational resource on how cancer is diagnosed and classified — under the microscope and in the molecular lab. We cover the diagnostic pathway for the major tumor types — breast, lung, colon, ovarian, and prostate cancer, and the B-cell lymphomas — from H&E classification to the biomarkers and molecular assays that guide treatment.
Each cancer is organized the way a pathologist works through it: an overview of the disease, how it's classified on histology, the biomarker and molecular testing that informs therapy, and the digital and liquid-biopsy methods changing how that work is done. The aim is explanatory, not prescriptive — reference material for pathologists, oncologists, and anyone trying to understand what a diagnostic report means.
Magpie does not provide medical advice. Nothing here substitutes for a qualified clinician's interpretation of an individual case.
Magpie is organized by cancer type, with a consistent path through each:
- Breast, Lung, Colon, Ovarian, Prostate, and Lymphoma — each with an overview of the disease, how it's classified on histology, and the biomarkers and molecular tests that guide treatment.
- Digital Pulse — cross-cancer coverage of digital and computational pathology: AI-assisted detection, image analysis, and the regulatory landscape.
- Liquid Pulse — cross-cancer coverage of ctDNA and liquid biopsy: what a blood draw can and can't tell you.
Magpie is led by Dr. Joseph Anderson, a board-certified pathologist who serves as CLIA laboratory director across multiple high-complexity clinical laboratories — spanning reproductive health, oncology, liquid biopsy, and single-cell and spatial genomics. His work covers the full operational backbone of modern molecular diagnostics — NGS operations, CLIA/CAP compliance, and assay validation — for laboratories running at national commercial scale, including some of the newest platforms in the field.
He previously led the clinical pathology group at Genomic Health as the Oncotype DX Breast Cancer Assay scaled past half a million tests, and has served the College of American Pathologists on the Molecular Oncology Committee and the American Medical Association on coding and new-technology assessment. He hosts Digital Pathology Today.