Juan Carlos Torres Sánchez #804-11-9230 BIOL 3095

Seminar 3 on Metabolomics

On September 6,Leiddy Alvarado offered a seminar about metabolic studies in breast

cancer patients. The main goal of the research is identifying a way to discover an

early prognosis of breast cancer. Something many people don’t know is that when

cancer survivor patients are in remission it means that they are not cured, but for the

moment there is no visible recurrence of the cancer. Leiddy Alvarado’s research

specializes in finding biomarkers for the early detection of breast cancer recurrence in

patients. The techniques used were MS and NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance).

Thislast one is new to me. The combination of both techniques helps to identify

specific biomarkers with more specificity and sensitivity. Specificity isdefinedas the

probability that a testlet’sa person know that they do not have the disease. Sensitivity

is the probability that a testtells a person it has the disease when in fact they do have

the disease. The analysis for sensitivity and specificity is an important aspect of this

project because with them the result is more precise and efficient. Research

employingMetabolic techniques, such as NMR and MS, utilizes a lot of analytical

chemistry.

The results of this research are the identification of eleven biomarkers that could be

potential biomarkers for early breast cancer prognosis. The experiment is still in the

validation stage, but regardless, it passed a pre validation giving hope that this

research is going down the right path. If this experiment is completed and the

procedure marketed, patients with a simple blood test would know their prognosis

without having to go through invasive surgery, or spending a great deal of money.

That would be a great advantage. Also, Metabolomic studies can be used for other

diseases instead of cancer. For example, it can help detect biomarkers for certain

diseases, such as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Leiddy Alvarez was a great speaker and her motivation was really effective. I will

never forget what she repeated: “Keep on going, never give up” and “Take risks”.