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Early detection, we’re often told, is the surest way to beat cancer. It’s the reason why, year after year, men and women of a certain age dutifully visit their doctors and undergo uncomfortable tests to screen for things like prostate and breast cancer.
But what about the other hundred or so types of cancer out there—the brain cancers, the ovarian cancers, the leukemias and lymphomas? And what of the millions of young people who never get tested at all, even though they’ve been found to have worse outcomes than adults?
Current diagnostic methods for other cancers are invasive and expensive, so the vast majority of cancer patients never realize they might have cancer until something goes wrong with their health. By that point, in many cases, it’s already too late.
MIROCULUS COULD MAKE REGULAR CANCER SCREENINGS AS SIMPLE AS GETTING BLOOD DRAWN.
That’s why a new startup, dubbed Miroculus, is building a device that could easily and affordably check for dozens of cancers using a single blood sample. Known as Miriam, this low-cost, open source device made its public debut at the TEDGlobal conference in Rio De Janeiro on Thursday, with TED curator Chris Anderson calling it “one of the most thrilling demos in TED history.”
For the company’s founders—a global team of entrepreneurs, microbiologists, and data scientists—the goal is to make Miriam so simple that even untrained workers in clinics around the world could use it. The project is still in the early stages, but if the early trials of Miriam are to be believed, Miroculus could make regular cancer screenings as simple as getting blood drawn.
A Biological Warning Sign
The Miroculus technology is based on microRNA, a class of small molecules that can act as a type of biological warning sign, appearing and disappearing based on what is happening in our bodies at that moment. As a result, they’ve become effective indicators of diseases—including cancer—ever since they were first discovered in 1993. They can reveal not just whether a person may have cancer, but what specific type of cancer that person might have.
For years, however, researchers believed microRNA could only be found inside of cells, making these biomarkers less accessible. But in 2008, a group of researchers discovered microRNA circulating in blood, spawning a wave of interest from other scientists, who viewed microRNA as the key to early cancer detection.
Fay Christodoulou was one such researcher. After spending years studying microRNA’s effects on evolution, Christodoulou, a Greek molecular biologist, shifted her focus to study the connection between microRNA and thyroid cancer. Last year, she decided to take some time off to enter a graduate studies program at Singularity University, a Silicon Valley incubator that challenges people to spend 10 weeks developing a business idea with the power to impact one billion people or more.
It was there that she met Alejandro Tocigl, a Chilean entrepreneur; Gilad Gome, an Israeli biotechnologist; Pablo Olivares, a Chilean doctor; Ferrán Galindo, a serial entrepreneur from Panama; and Jorge Soto, a Mexican electronic engineer and former general director of civic innovation for the Mexican government. Together, they formed a team and developed the bones of what would eventually become Miriam.
“In 10 weeks, to make something from nothing is practically impossible. But what they teach you—in my personal case, for the first time in my life—was in order to disrupt, you don’t need to do 10 years of research,” Christodoulou says. “You’re capable of using pre-existing tools but combining them in a way no one had thought of before.”
cont'd
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/miroculus/
But what about the other hundred or so types of cancer out there—the brain cancers, the ovarian cancers, the leukemias and lymphomas? And what of the millions of young people who never get tested at all, even though they’ve been found to have worse outcomes than adults?
Current diagnostic methods for other cancers are invasive and expensive, so the vast majority of cancer patients never realize they might have cancer until something goes wrong with their health. By that point, in many cases, it’s already too late.
MIROCULUS COULD MAKE REGULAR CANCER SCREENINGS AS SIMPLE AS GETTING BLOOD DRAWN.
That’s why a new startup, dubbed Miroculus, is building a device that could easily and affordably check for dozens of cancers using a single blood sample. Known as Miriam, this low-cost, open source device made its public debut at the TEDGlobal conference in Rio De Janeiro on Thursday, with TED curator Chris Anderson calling it “one of the most thrilling demos in TED history.”
For the company’s founders—a global team of entrepreneurs, microbiologists, and data scientists—the goal is to make Miriam so simple that even untrained workers in clinics around the world could use it. The project is still in the early stages, but if the early trials of Miriam are to be believed, Miroculus could make regular cancer screenings as simple as getting blood drawn.
A Biological Warning Sign
The Miroculus technology is based on microRNA, a class of small molecules that can act as a type of biological warning sign, appearing and disappearing based on what is happening in our bodies at that moment. As a result, they’ve become effective indicators of diseases—including cancer—ever since they were first discovered in 1993. They can reveal not just whether a person may have cancer, but what specific type of cancer that person might have.
For years, however, researchers believed microRNA could only be found inside of cells, making these biomarkers less accessible. But in 2008, a group of researchers discovered microRNA circulating in blood, spawning a wave of interest from other scientists, who viewed microRNA as the key to early cancer detection.
Fay Christodoulou was one such researcher. After spending years studying microRNA’s effects on evolution, Christodoulou, a Greek molecular biologist, shifted her focus to study the connection between microRNA and thyroid cancer. Last year, she decided to take some time off to enter a graduate studies program at Singularity University, a Silicon Valley incubator that challenges people to spend 10 weeks developing a business idea with the power to impact one billion people or more.
It was there that she met Alejandro Tocigl, a Chilean entrepreneur; Gilad Gome, an Israeli biotechnologist; Pablo Olivares, a Chilean doctor; Ferrán Galindo, a serial entrepreneur from Panama; and Jorge Soto, a Mexican electronic engineer and former general director of civic innovation for the Mexican government. Together, they formed a team and developed the bones of what would eventually become Miriam.
“In 10 weeks, to make something from nothing is practically impossible. But what they teach you—in my personal case, for the first time in my life—was in order to disrupt, you don’t need to do 10 years of research,” Christodoulou says. “You’re capable of using pre-existing tools but combining them in a way no one had thought of before.”
cont'd
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/miroculus/