DNAP E-mail to GLADREAPER from Dr. Tony Frudakis. Please feast your eyes on the last sentence of the e-mail!!!
ragingbull.altavista.com
What follows is an email response I received from DnaPrint Genomics Friday. This is a repost, but tt answers a few basic questions every skeptic will need to resolve so I might as well post this every so often
As a courtesy, I asked for and received permission from Dr. Frudakis to pass this email on to interested
persons.
-------------------------------------------------------
Tony Frudakis, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
DNAPrint genomics
1748 Independence Blvd.,
Ste. D1
Sarasota, FL 34234
(941) 351-4543
(941) 351-7388
www.dnaprint.com
From: ############# (GLADREAPER) To: "'tfrudakis@dnaprint.com'"
Subject: quick question Dr. Tony
Date: Fri, Sep 1, 2000, 4:05 AM
Good Morning to you Tony! Various persons have asked me these questions:
QUESTION (by a Raging Bull poster)
Why do you think Dna Print has something special?
ANSWER (by Dr. Frudakis)
We have a proprietary SNP database that has taken a lot to generate,with a SNP density
10 times greater than any public resource.
QUESTION (by a Raging Bull poster)
There are lots of math models that will work with the multiple gene location search
problems. Many have been worked on by universities for years and these universities
have contracts with the big biotech/genomics shops. Everyone was just waiting for
the genome to be mapped. Why is this company so special"
ANSWER (by Dr. Frudakis)
Current math models are not doing the job. Linkage studies, linkage disequilibrium
analysis, sib-pair analysis, relative risk studies use statistical models which generally
produce results with low statistical
signifigance. No person, group or entity currently has a good mathematical model
for using a case-controlled study to answer questions about quantitative genetics
in the human population.
Your friend is talking about a genome wide linkage disequilibrium study (I presume
since he refers to "gene location search problems"). Many people, ourselves included,
feel that a marker map must be so dense for
statistical signifigance, that it would be cost prohibitive to perform this type
of study. Your friend is wrong here - people are NOT just waiting to apply old
ideas to this new information. NEW ideas are necessary before it can be used effectively.
Proof of this can be seen by looking up the NIH NHGRI website - under complex genetics
- and you can see what a problem area this is by how much the government wants to
spend in this area.
QUESTION (by a Doctor acquaintance of mine)
"Genetic stocks geneate a lot of interest, because they have new technology, but
I have not yet found one with a marketable product that I can really see will be
useful in medicine. How does this company plan on making money? Are
they making a drug or is it an information system? The later would probably be more
useful than the drug from what I've heard"
ANSWER (by Dr. Frudakis)
Our main product will be the information that comes from applying our informatics
to population based (case control) genetic studies. Our results will constitute a
mathematical expression which describes the population
variation relative to the trait and a panel of cSNPs, SNPs and/or Haplotypes. For
a drug interaction problem - like poor efficacy for a chemotherapy drug in certain
people, or serious hepatocellular contraindictions in others, this product is a marketable
commodity. We will
make money by "leasing" this information to physicians and/or directly to patients.
For example, a physician in the near future will take a saliva or blood specimen,
obtain your DNA "fingerprint" and run it through our
servers on-line for comparison. Tell your doctor friend that it is similar to the
"Prostasure" PSA analytical tool that he probably uses on line, and pays $50
each time he uses it. |
