1. Juan Carlos Torres Sánchez #804-11-9230 BIOL 3095
Seminar 3 on Metabolomics
On September 6,Leiddy Alvarado offered a seminar about metabolic studies in breast
cancer patients. The main goal of the research is identifying a way to discover an
early prognosis of breast cancer. Something many people don’t know is that when
cancer survivor patients are in remission it means that they are not cured, but for the
moment there is no visible recurrence of the cancer. Leiddy Alvarado’s research
specializes in finding biomarkers for the early detection of breast cancer recurrence in
patients. The techniques used were MS and NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance).
Thislast one is new to me. The combination of both techniques helps to identify
specific biomarkers with more specificity and sensitivity. Specificity isdefinedas the
probability that a testlet’sa person know that they do not have the disease. Sensitivity
is the probability that a testtells a person it has the disease when in fact they do have
the disease. The analysis for sensitivity and specificity is an important aspect of this
project because with them the result is more precise and efficient. Research
employingMetabolic techniques, such as NMR and MS, utilizes a lot of analytical
chemistry.
The results of this research are the identification of eleven biomarkers that could be
potential biomarkers for early breast cancer prognosis. The experiment is still in the
validation stage, but regardless, it passed a pre validation giving hope that this
research is going down the right path. If this experiment is completed and the
procedure marketed, patients with a simple blood test would know their prognosis
without having to go through invasive surgery, or spending a great deal of money.
That would be a great advantage. Also, Metabolomic studies can be used for other

2. diseases instead of cancer. For example, it can help detect biomarkers for certain
diseases, such as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Leiddy Alvarez was a great speaker and her motivation was really effective. I will
never forget what she repeated: “Keep on going, never give up” and “Take risks”.