On the third episode of This Is Only A Test, Mickey Urdea is breaking the mold to talk to you about mold! Mycology, the study of the Kingdom of Fungi, might not get the spotlight as often as Animals or Plants (heck, maybe even less than some Protists) but the powerful Fungus plays a key cog in the cycle of life on Earth, especially in regard to their roles as decomposers (Wolfgang Amadeus Moldzart, anyone?) and as food fermenters. But don't break out the Roquefort just yet, as mold can also cause debilitating disease in humans, from the emerging fungus C. auris, which can cause severe multidrug-resistant illness in hospitalized patients, to ergotism, a poisoning predominantly caused by infected rye which can cause gangrenous symptoms (think a Pieter Bruegel painting) and delirious hallucinations that border on madness (think a Hieronymus Bosch painting); in fact, some hypothesize that ergot poisoning can explain away the Dancing Plague of 1518, and maybe even the Salem Witch Trials! Mickey covers it all, as well as the latest diagnostic technologies and methodologies which are helping to test and treat neglected mycological diseases. So douse your tempeh in soy sauce and grab a bottle of Chianti, it's time for "Learning To Live With The Fungus Among Us!"
On Episode 2 of "This Is Only A Test", Mickey Urdea is thrilled to be finally talking about APTAMERS! Aptamers are generally defined as oligomers of artificial ssDNA, RNA, or XNA which bind a specific target molecule or family or target molecules, and despite some Nobel Prize-winning work in the field, they have been underutilized for immunoassay development – until now! If Mickey has his way, you will walk away from this episode champing at the bit to get your hands on some aptamers. So please enjoy this overview of the development of the use of aptamers in immunoassays, the latest innovations and breakthroughs in those methodologies, and the determined companies working to harness those technologies. Get rapt to be apt at aptamers!
Click HERE for all the slides presented in this episode.
In the debut episode of "This Is Only A Test", Dr. Mickey Urdea is marching to his own rhythm - his own algorithm, that is! In order to help you understand how modern diagnostic technologies utilize mathematical algorithms, Mickey is covering the ABCs on AUC, scouring the rock bottom of ROC curves, and connecting the algebraic work of 7th century Persian polymath Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi to today's best practices for diagnostic testing. You don't have to rhumba to move to the rhythm of algorithms!
In this episode of Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics, Mickey Urdea is presenting this practical guide on the breadth and depth of the proteome! From an overview of the proteome itself to the techniques used to find subsets of proteins of interest that may correspond to a particular disease state, as well as the top technologies available and what separates them from the rest, this episode will serve as your guide for “How To Proceed With Proteomics!”
Just in time for Thanksgiving, Halteres Associates is serving up a new episode of Interesting Stories In The History of Diagnostics about the microbiome! As you munch on every bite of stuffing, remember that your body is made up of a community of commensal, symbiotic, and pathogenic microorganisms such as bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, and viruses, as well as protozoans and other protists, so you are actually giving a little taste of Thanksgiving dinner to every microbe who’s along for the ride. And as you recline on your sofa for a post-turkey nap, envision just how that tryptophan is being broken down by your whole microorganism pit crew.
Spatial biology is a new frontier in molecular biology, but so far as we can tell it has not as of yet been explained all that well, so Mickey Urdea is stepping in to answer some questions about this complex study of tissues within their own 2D- and 3D-contexts, and the technologies being utilized to provide insight toward new strategies to prevent and treat disease, in “Making Space For Spatial Biology!”
In the third and final installment of "Getting Hip To Hepatitis!", Mickey Urdea is recounting the progress that was made, in the immediate aftermath of its discovery, to know more about the Hepatitis C virus, how to measure it, and how to treat it. Armed with alpha interferon, viral load, and some help from Japan, Mickey will walk you through how Hepatitis C went from discovery to treatment, and perhaps someday soon, to a vaccine cure. Tune in for the last word on "Getting Hip To Hepatitis!"
In Part Two, Mickey Urdea is picking up where he left off with the discovery of Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis, moving forward to the work that was done for developing accurate RNA tests for Hepatitis C, what genotypes and subtypes were uncovered, how the universally agreed-upon nomenclature and labeling of those subtypes were solidified by him and his team at Chiron, and how surprisingly important genotyping became for appropriate treatment of HCV infection.
“Getting Hip To Hepatitis!” Part One - On the first part of this two-part series, Mickey Urdea is sharing his perspective on the discovery of Hepatitis C Virus, and the subsequent impact on global health! Part One covers the earliest work on "Non-A Non-B" Hepatitis at Chiron Corporation up to the first approved blood screening test for the newly discovered pathogen, and Part Two will continue on with what happened after that Nobel Prize-winning discovery. Get hip and see all there is to "C" about Non-A Non-B Hepatitis.
On Episode 24 of Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics, Mickey Urdea is buzzing about malaria! Earth's leading mosquito-borne disease affects 247 million people worldwide every year, with about 619,000 deaths. On this episode, Mickey guides you through the massive scope of this parasitic infection, the historic obstacles and solutions for proper diagnosis, the many Nobel prizes that have been awarded for combating this disease, and what problems are yet to solved. Put on your mosquito net, and protect yourself against malaria!
On Episode 23 of "Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics", Mickey is resurrecting the idea of the "zombie life science company" to elucidate just why diagnostics companies fail. Some life science companies with a great idea turn out to be successes, some end up as failures, and some make a critical error somewhere along the way and are dead before they even know it yet - hence, a zombie! Mickey and the Halteres team performed extensive research as to how life science companies can avoid the pitfalls of others who came before them, and in this episode he's breaking down that learning in the engaging way that only he can. Don't be afraid to fail (or afraid of zombies!), and please enjoy this episode.
If you'd like to watch Mickey's full coverage on the subject, here's his PowerPoint presentation at SelectBio's Boston Conference in March of 2022: https://youtu.be/6Kf6imexz_Q
And if you'd like to read the full report from Halteres Associates on “"Postmortems on diagnostic testing start-ups: reports of commercial successes and failures and the case of the Zombie life science company", you can read that here: https://innovations.bmj.com/content/7/1/11
While we tend to associate mummies with Halloween, manmade and naturally occurring mummies are one of science’s greatest sources of the genetics of human history, and analyzing parasites and diseases within their preserved bodies can help unwrap (if you will) the layers of yet-untold stories of how mankind got where we are today. In this episode, Mickey is unsealing the entombed secrets of the Incan Ice Mummies, the smoked mummies of the Torres Strait Islands, what paleomicrobiology is, how the paint color “Mummy Brown” got its name, and King Tut's lingering ailments and likely cause of death – though he was not, as Steve Martin suggested, “born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia”.
On episode 21 of "Interesting Stories In The History Of Diagnostics", Mickey Urdea is asking: "Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?" That's no puzzle - it's a palindrome! Yes that's right, he's discussing CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, the hallmark trait of a bacterial defense system that forms the basis for CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology, which can be programmed to target specific stretches of genetic code and to edit DNA at precise locations, as well as for other purposes, such as for new diagnostic tools. This episode not only serves to detail the historical timeline of CRISPR technology (which is certainly interesting on its own), but to then illustrate how the technology actually works and where the field is going. So don't get burnt to a crisp, just get CRISPR!
On this episode, Mickey Urdea is plunging into the plague! The bubonic plague pandemic, or The Black Death, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, was the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, killing at least 75–200 million people and forever altering the future of Europe and Asia - but where did the plague come from? How did it spread so quickly? Why have we learned so much more about the plague in the last decade? And is it still around today? Mickey is here to tell you, and to share the different DNA analysis technologies which have helped answer some of the lingering questions about how the plague played out!
In Part 1 of this 3-part series on "the emperor of all maladies", Mickey Urdea tracked cancer all the way from Australopithecus bones and Egyptian mummies up to the first days of modern day protein assays for the detection of cancer markers, especially focusing on the contributions of the global pioneer in such assays, the company Centocor. Now in Parts 2 and 3, Mickey Urdea gets to move on to the wide panoply of tests and technologies that exist today for the screening, diagnosis, staging, prognostication, therapy selection, monitoring, and recurrence of cancer, with Part 2 highlighting those technologies focused on the whole body and specific tissue samples, and Part 3 zeroing in on individual molecules and “the in-between”.
In Part 1 of this 3-part series on "the emperor of all maladies", Mickey Urdea tracked cancer all the way from Australopithecus bones and Egyptian mummies up to the first days of modern day protein assays for the detection of cancer markers, especially focusing on the contributions of the global pioneer in such assays, the company Centocor. Now in Parts 2 and 3, Mickey Urdea gets to move on to the wide panoply of tests and technologies that exist today for the screening, diagnosis, staging, prognostication, therapy selection, monitoring, and recurrence of cancer, with Part 2 highlighting those technologies focused on the whole body and specific tissue samples, and Part 3 zeroing in on individual molecules and “the in-between”.
Happy New Year to you from Halteres Associates! As we wrap up 2022, Mickey Urdea is just getting started on the history of diagnosing cancer! In Part 1 on this subject, Mickey tracks cancer all the way from Australopithecus bones and Egyptian mummies up to cutting edge modern day protein assays for the detection of cancer markers for potential uses in early detection, secondary screening, therapy selection, recurrence, and beyond, especially focusing on the contributions of the global pioneer in such assays, the company Centocor. In honor of all those who live and have lived with cancer, please enjoy this jam-packed first episode on such a colossal topic.
On Episode 18 of “Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics”, Mickey Urdea is reviewing breath-based diagnostics, or what is transpiring with transpiration! Exhaled breath holds many secrets beyond what you ate for breakfast, and analysis of the compounds in breath can help to diagnose SARS-CoV-2, gastrointestinal disorders, and even lung cancer (among many others). New instruments and technologies are emerging and succeeding in the post-pandemic landscape, so it's not a waste of breath to say that breath-based diagnostics are the new frontier in non-invasive sample collection! Don't hold your breath, just tune in, for "Don't Hold Your Breath"!
On October 17th, 2022, Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of the now-bankrupt diagnostics company Theranos, will be sentenced after her conviction for one count of wire fraud conspiracy and three substantive wire fraud counts relating to the scheme to defraud investors, including wire transfers totaling more than $140 million. She faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution, for the conspiracy count and each count of wire fraud... but before all of that, investors fell for Theranos's technology. How were they deceived in the first place? And why did Theranos’s fingerprick diagnostic system NOT work as claimed? Could that technology with such small blood sample sizes ever conceivably detect of all the things they claimed?
On this special episode of "Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics", Halteres Associates founding partner Mickey Urdea answers all of those questions and more with the assistance of associate Scott Eastman. Mickey met with Theranos all the way back in 2006 and quickly concluded that their technology was never going to work - but how? And why were so many others fooled? Tune in to find out, as Mickey and Scott walk you through the actual biochemistry fundamentals behind the impossible promise of Theranos!
Tick tock, it’s time for some tick talk! On this episode, Mickey is discussing tick-borne diseases – their causes, their related detection technologies, and why climate change might exacerbate the problem worldwide. Lyme Disease receives much of the spotlight (especially given its many famous cases, including Shania Twain and Yolanda and Bella Hadid), but even Lyme is not fully understood (or agreed upon) and there are at least 18 known tick-borne diseases in the United States alone! Don’t let this subject matter get under your skin, just tune in for “The Clock Is Ticking on Tick-Borne Diseases!”
