Scientific Advances
Independent Publication
BCAL Diagnostics’ approach to testing for breast cancer has been further independently validated with the publication of a paper by a group at Rush Medical University in Chicago. Their paper, highlighted in our July Newsletter, gave further strong support to BCAL Diagnostics unique approach. The company is well advanced in collaborative discussions with this group to further enhance the BCAL Test.
BCAL Diagnostics Publication
In November 2016, BCAL published an article, "Circulating Phospholipids as Biomarkers of Breast Cancer: a review” which provides the theory behind the BCAL Diagnostics technology. The publication of this paper is further strong endorsement of BCAL Diagnostics' approach and highlights the scientific credibility associated with the BCAL Test. Other publications are being prepared to build on this first article.
BCAL Diagnostics Wins Top Industry Award
A paper published on 2 May 2016 has independently validated and peer reviewed BCAL Diagnostics underlying science and gives further support to the development of the BCAL Diagnostics technology.
The paper, “Plasma lipidomics profiling identified lipid biomarkers in distinguishing early-stage breast cancer from benign lesions,” was published by a group of researchers at The Fourth Hospital Affiliated to Guangxi Medical University (China) and the Department of Medicine, Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Last month, Chief Scientist Dr Dharmica Mistry and Director, Dr Peter French, visited the group at their Chicago laboratories in the USA. Professor Younping Deng and Dr Hongwei Wang from the group were keen to collaborate with BCAL Diagnostics and give BCAL Diagnostics an entry point into the Chinese market.
Professor Deng has over 15 years’ experience in the lipidomic space and the group has data for lung cancer and prostate cancer, which further support the BCAL Dx’s scientific hypothesis.
The group has recently formed a new company in Shanghai and has just raised USD $10 million. It has excellent relations with the Chinese government and good access to hospitals throughout China for sample collection. The group has also acquired laboratory space to set up medical testing using their research and technologies.
BCAL Dx has begun drafting a Heads of Agreement with the Chinese group, which explores multiple models for this relationship and how both parties can move forward together.
The research team behind the paper, had used a different mass spectrometer and different methods and found that a panel of 15 lipid species had “high diagnostic value”.
In the training set, sensitivity and specificity were 83.3% and 92.7%, respectively. The Area Under the Curve in the training set was 0.926 (95% CI 0.869-0.982). Similar results were found in the validation set. They concluded that the combination of these 15 lipid species (increasing and decreasing) as a panel could be used as plasma biomarkers for the diagnosis of breast cancer. This independent validation further supports the BCAL Diagnostics scientific hypothesis through data the group has also acquired for lung cancer and prostate cancer.
After a snowboarding fall, Jill Webb (not her real name) had a pain in her ribs that would not go away.
The 33-year-old had an ultrasound that showed internal bruising but was told not to worry. Five weeks later, the pain had not subsided. A mammogram showed Ms Webb had abnormal changes in her breast that suggested the presence of cancerous cells.
