A previous substack post described the history of PNC-27—an interplay of serendipity and a prepared mind—leading to the surprising result that a small peptide (15 amino acids) was able kill many different types of cancers in tissue culture. This is very surprising in that, as generally appreciated, cancer cells vary greatly, sometimes even within the same tumor.
Thank you for your response. What are the current sensitivity/specificity numbers for the Pap test? It is a cheap and effective dx test, and hopefully your numbers are far better for commercial adoption.
Don’t you need to complete a prospective study? Will this be an LDT or a FDA approved test? Do you have any numbers on sensitivity and specificity? Thanks
Yes. This is really current research. We did not mean to suggest this is an established test. We will need to do sensitivity and specificity tests. For readers unfamiliar with the terms, sensitivity means you will correctly identify samples with cancer. On that, the test looks good but we need to make that quantitative. Specificity means that we do not falsely identify as positive, normal cells, or in this case, those cells that look odd but are not cancer, Preliminary tests look good but I think this is the potential benefit since we will have clear indicator. And, of course, we still do not know the mechanism. But the real plus right now is that the samples to be tested are already archived and outcomes known. LDT means Laboratory Developed Tests and the FDA has regulations on these. I don’t see problems in that the test is strictly in vitro and no risk to the patient.
A very detailed and well researched article! This is so valuable because 90% of sexually active people will contract HPV at least once in their lives. HPV touches the lives of almost everyone on the planet. So there can never be too many advocates for HPV vaccination, Pap smears or any other preventative strategies against HPV infection. Fantastic work!
Thanks. On vaccines, I have very strict dedication to not getting involved, having an opinion, etc. largely because I don’t want to find out that my friends have weird opinions.
I am sure we will get it published. The question is how can we get the diagnostic test out there and, most of all, turn this into therapy. Or even can somebody show us the limitation of the method as far as we have taken it. There is the basic problem that it is hard enough to do the work but getting it to be a high priority in research is a whole other thing. Of course, there are precedents for cancer treatments (or maybe many scientific discoveries) that had to be discovered more than once.
Thank you for your response. What are the current sensitivity/specificity numbers for the Pap test? It is a cheap and effective dx test, and hopefully your numbers are far better for commercial adoption.
Don’t you need to complete a prospective study? Will this be an LDT or a FDA approved test? Do you have any numbers on sensitivity and specificity? Thanks
Yes. This is really current research. We did not mean to suggest this is an established test. We will need to do sensitivity and specificity tests. For readers unfamiliar with the terms, sensitivity means you will correctly identify samples with cancer. On that, the test looks good but we need to make that quantitative. Specificity means that we do not falsely identify as positive, normal cells, or in this case, those cells that look odd but are not cancer, Preliminary tests look good but I think this is the potential benefit since we will have clear indicator. And, of course, we still do not know the mechanism. But the real plus right now is that the samples to be tested are already archived and outcomes known. LDT means Laboratory Developed Tests and the FDA has regulations on these. I don’t see problems in that the test is strictly in vitro and no risk to the patient.
A very detailed and well researched article! This is so valuable because 90% of sexually active people will contract HPV at least once in their lives. HPV touches the lives of almost everyone on the planet. So there can never be too many advocates for HPV vaccination, Pap smears or any other preventative strategies against HPV infection. Fantastic work!
Thanks. On vaccines, I have very strict dedication to not getting involved, having an opinion, etc. largely because I don’t want to find out that my friends have weird opinions.
nice information. Hope you get the formal paper published.
Yes I hope so also
I am sure we will get it published. The question is how can we get the diagnostic test out there and, most of all, turn this into therapy. Or even can somebody show us the limitation of the method as far as we have taken it. There is the basic problem that it is hard enough to do the work but getting it to be a high priority in research is a whole other thing. Of course, there are precedents for cancer treatments (or maybe many scientific discoveries) that had to be discovered more than once.