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Biotech / Medical : Ciphergen Biosystems(CIPH): -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Biomaven who wrote (48)	3/19/2002 12:20:52 AM
From: tuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 510

Though MAS predates every corporate entity under discussion, LumiCyte is a young operation (1999) and doesn't have much to show -- or that it wants to. If LumiCyte has customers they aren't saying who. On their website they talk of NCI: >> LumiCyte is working in collaboration with centers of clinical excellence worldwide including medical and academic institutions such as the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The NCI/FDA collaboration builds on work in which LumiCyte scientists, in collaboration with the NCI/FDA, discovered what appears to be a unique pattern of proteins in the serum of asymptomatic prostate cancer patients. The protein biomarker profiles currently being validated have not been previously identified as biomarkers for prostate cancer.<< But make no reference to a publication, nor could I find any searching PubMed in several ways. >>LumiCyte discovers and validates new Protein BioMarker Profiles, focusing initially on four diseases: breast cancer, diabetes, ovarian cancer and prostate cancer.<< Meanwhile, CIPH does, in a sense, sell information . . . Snip of CEO Rich from CIPH Pr of 5/29/01: "The Biomarker Patterns Software module that is being launched addresses a key component of the biomarker discovery process. A major benefit of the ProteinChip platform is in the discovery and correlation of multiple biomarkers in a population of samples to rapidly validate clinical, toxicological and cell pathway pathology. As was the case in the development of DNA array technology, the flood of data produced by the instrument makes informatics tools critical to interpreting the results. The new software package combined with an updated ‘Biomarker Wizard’ in Ciphergen’s core software package automatically identifies multiple protein peaks that correlate with phenotype differences between samples. The new line of ProteinChip Arrays improves both the total number of proteins detected from a single sample as well as the data reproducibility from run-to-run. In combination with pattern recognition analysis, these array improvements create high clinical statistical confidence in sample stratification results.”<< So they are taking the same path, but to the same end user? Anyhow, they use Shimadzu (Kratos) mass specs. That is their only strategic alliance. Partners not mentioned, only collaborators mentioned with any specificity are NCI/FDA scientists. I hate researching private companies, and I'm done with this one. Bet you're glad. Cheers, Tuck

To: Biomaven who wrote (48)	8/13/2002 1:52:44 PM
From: tuck	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 510

Peter, Improvements in specificity and sensitivity seem to be coming fast. In abstracts presented at this year's AACR meeting, the multiple biomarker approach yielded 92% sensitivity, and 82% specificity for breast cancer diagnosis. Here we see a marked improvement in the latter: >>Clin Chem 2002 Aug;48(8):1296-304 Proteomics and bioinformatics approaches for identification of serum biomarkers to detect breast cancer. Li J, Zhang Z, Rosenzweig J, Wang YY, Chan DW. Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA. BACKGROUND: Surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization (SELDI) is an affinity-based mass spectrometric method in which proteins of interest are selectively adsorbed to a chemically modified surface on a biochip, whereas impurities are removed by washing with buffer. This technology allows sensitive and high-throughput protein profiling of complex biological specimens. METHODS: We screened for potential tumor biomarkers in 169 serum samples, including samples from a cancer group of 103 breast cancer patients at different clinical stages [stage 0 (n = 4), stage I (n = 38), stage II (n = 37), and stage III (n = 24)], from a control group of 41 healthy women, and from 25 patients with benign breast diseases. Diluted serum samples were applied to immobilized metal affinity capture Ciphergen ProteinChip Arrays previously activated with Ni2+. Proteins bound to the chelated metal were analyzed on a ProteinChip Reader Model PBS II. Complex protein profiles of different diagnostic groups were compared and analyzed using the ProPeak software package. RESULTS: A panel of three biomarkers was selected based on their collective contribution to the optimal separation between stage 0-I breast cancer patients and noncancer controls. The same separation was observed using independent test data from stage II-III breast cancer patients. Bootstrap cross-validation demonstrated that a sensitivity of 93% for all cancer patients and a specificity of 91% for all controls were achieved by a composite index derived by multivariate logistic regression using the three selected biomarkers. CONCLUSIONS: Proteomics approaches such as SELDI mass spectrometry, in conjunction with bioinformatics tools, could greatly facilitate the discovery of new and better biomarkers. The high sensitivity and specificity achieved by the combined use of the selected biomarkers show great potential for the early detection of breast cancer.<< emphasis mine Cheers, Tuck