1. Nicole Colón
Seminar Reflections:
According to Vincent A. et al in the article “Early detection of Recurrent Brest Cancer Using
Metabolite Profiling” brest cancer is one of the leading causes of death between women. Recent studies
have proved that early detection of breast cancer can increase the survival of the affected person. It’s said
that using common methods for detecting this types of cancer, such as mammography and blood tests,
may not be sensitive enough. This study focus on detecting brest cancer by using “Metabolite Profiling”.
Metabolimic is study of chemical processes involving metabolites. To detect this kind of molecule two
main techniques are used: NMR and MS.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance involved the manipulation of nuclear spin of an atom while Mass
spectrometry separates and detect mass of protein found in the tissue. Using a combination of both
techniques, NMR and MS, leads scientist to a more sensitive and specific biomarkers. During the
detection of these biomarkers serum samples are collected; this samples are put through the two main
techniques, NMR and MS. The data obtain is used to performed statistical analysis and “putative
biomarkers” are identify. These putative biomarkers are validated through two methods: Supervised
method and unsupervised method. Unsupervised methods detect clusters while the supervised method
determines whether the disease is present or not. This article provides the scientific world information
about other methods that can be very useful in the detection of these diseases, such as brest cancer. Using
this kind of methods can be dramatically significant to the scientific world involved in cancer studies. It
can be applied to daily use and can increase the survival of the affected persons.