Five Phases of Biomarker Development for Early Detection of Cancer Where are the retrospective studies? Collecting samples About two decades ago was an exciting time in biology, and optimism reached a peak with the first draft of the Human Genome Project announced in 2000 (“A revolution in preventing, diagnosing, treating, and curing disease” [...]
Optimum plasma sample collection and handling for cell-free DNA liquid biopsies A recent publication indicates the best way to preserve intact cell-free DNA for any minimally-invasive genomic assay Liquid biopsy, whether examining cell-free DNA or circulating tumor cells (CTCs), is a very promising approach for non-invasive cancer management. In particular, cell-free DNA approaches in plasma [...]
Screen capture from Dr. Gore's video presentation of the Singlera early-detection technology. Singlera ASHG Presentation now available A video presentation by Dr. Athurva Gore, Assoc. Director of Bioinformatics Singlera Genomics, is now available. The title of his talk is "Circulating tumor DNA methylation haplotypes in plasma can detect cancer four years prior to [...]
Hurricane Katrina as seen from space The four fundamentals of early warning systems A way to look at early cancer detection A hurricane afflicts damage across Florida. Wildfires rage through California. A deadly typhoon afflicts central Japan after weeks of flooding. These natural disasters occur with disturbing regularity. An individual's health can also [...]
Mammography, a common cancer screening test Current screening approaches for early cancer detection The American Cancer Society screening recommendations and a thought experiment A recent article by a Stanford professor (and Andreessen Horowitz venture fund general partner) Vijay Pande in The Scientific American, entitled "How to Engineer Biology", subtitled 'Billion-dollar bridges rarely fail—whereas [...]
Singlera detects single molecules of ctmDNA Single molecule detection of ctmDNA The reason why early detection biomarkers for cancer is not a trivial task First, second and third-generation sequencing First-generation sequencing (also known as Sanger sequencing, or dideoxy-terminator sequencing) was the technology used for the Human Genome Project, and remains a workhorse and [...]
A ribbon model of molecules of protein p53 binding to a strand of DNA. Obtain many circulating biomarkers broadly, or a few biomarkers deeply? Can you have it all? At the recent Society for Neuroscience, Abcam sponsored a workshop entitled "Biomarkers of Neuroinflammation in Parkinson’s Disease" where Dr. Nicole [...]
Why isn't cancer prevention a higher priority? Cancer death rates could be drastically reduced Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. In a recent issue of the journal Science (Sept 28 2018, Vol 361 Issue 6409 page 1317, "Cancer Prevention: Molecular and epidemiologic consensus" Song M and Tomasetti C et al. ref 1) [...]
An Illustration of Big Data Big Data and Early Detection of Cancer Big Data is great when there is signal, not so great if there isn't any signal Big Data is a popular topic in this age of machine learning and artificial intelligence. There is plenty of activity in the healthcare realm, not [...]
A group of CAT scans of the human brain What if circulating tumor methylated DNA from brain cancer could be detected? Can ctmDNA be an early detection tool for glioblastoma multiforme? Gliblastoma Multiforme is a terrible form of brain cancer. With a reported 5-year survival rate of only 4.4%, at just the 3-year [...]
