heheh. Well whether I can truly understand the
genetics or not, the SAGE tool itself is certainly
interesting.
They sent along the Nature Genetics article from
December too--the table of normal vs diseased tissues--
total transcripts and unique genes observed in each
tissue is truly mind boggling (maybe not to a tumor
biologist, but it certainly boggles my mind).
Example--colorectal cancer analysed--643k transcripts,
twice coverage of the transcriptome revealing over
83% of transcripts expected to be present at levels
as low as one copy per cell. Nice machine.
They also point out at the end of the article that
this is absolute expression levels--not relative,
which I presume is what other techniques measure,
not as useful perhaps--although they only say that
this is useful because of the integration of future
SAGE data.
People not educated in biology and genetics, and
that certainly includes me, sometimes have this
notion that there are a few "cancer genes" or an
Alzheimer's gene etc etc. From what I gather
turning on or off merely one gene is not solution
complicated diseases--such as cancer.
Now the part about using SAGE to discover the correct
antigens from which to build the vaccine cocktail,
that I've not really sorted out, but I'm pretty sure
that is where they are headed--probably saw it on the
website or something.
I don't mind saying that I spent my Greenspan Greenbacks
on GZMO stock today--I suppose if biotech cools off,
specifically the cancer vaccine and genomics stocks,
then the stock could sag a few bucks--but I think it is
more likely we see a higher valuation than lower, I mean
look at the marketcap--does not look so high at 120M,
that is less than a third of Biomira right now, looks
like a steal if you can hold on for a few years, and I
can do that.
The first hurdle for me was gaining some confidence
in management--which I got at the II forum, and from
the letter they sent me today. All the other hurdles
are for the company to jump--it'll be great fun to
watch this unfold over the years ahead. |
