Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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Look at Owl stone
Look at Roboscientific
Other areas would be Chicken Ar5e Kissers Disease on poultry farms.
Pseudomonas in CF patients
Kainos: Great to hear from you. I am not in the least perturbed by the apparent delays in AVCT getting its LFD technology out there. Indeed, quite to the contrary: AS is commercially very smart indeed and he knows better than anyone that how his Team rolls out AVCT's LFD test will have huge reputational implications regarding future collaborations on AVCT's various platforms.
From Chiron's insights, it is gratifying to hear that Porton Down Team and the Supervisory Group/Sir John Bell seem to be more in the driving-seat. There's nothing like a really serious, integrated Team such as Porton Down, compared with the rather hastily convened CONDOR, which, despite its Oxford connections, has appeared a little disorganised.
I will be writing a few emails tomorrow to some fairly serious folk in the liquid biopsy community to promote AVCT. Of course, AVCT already has a footprint in the cancer sphere, but science can be very hyper-specialised these days and cross-fertilisation of ideas can be very, very productive. The Affimer platform appears to have many ramifications which is why, for me, AVCT is a definite buy and hold.
enteleon - great poster yourself - Ophidian class / chiron - indispensable / PL - legend.
I also like Nixynoo - superb.
There arte a lot of good people here IMO
Not sure why posting this other than to say I love this BB and the characters etc - I will get my cheerleader outfit out of mothballs..
Go AVCT - etc
Sorry
GL
Ophidian and Chiron: Very grateful, as always, for your insights regarding Integumen's new device. Both of you have hinted at a possible applicability to cancer detection, possibly using Affimers as some sort of binding agent.
I'm sure both of you will be aware that there are a number of projects aiming to detect the presence of cancer cell in a non-invasive way- so called "liquid biopsy" being one example. This is where a blood sample is examined for circulating-tumour DNA (ctDNA), cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and, in the case of Angle PLC's (AGL) innovative "Parsortix" system, whole, live circulating tumour cells (CTC). If successful, these techniques may obviate the need for intrusive tissue biopsy. The advantage of ctDNA-search is that it may have applications for other fluid-based biopsies (plasma, urine, ? saliva). The advantage of CTC-search is that whole, live cells are captured, which can then be cultured. The spectrum of cancers to which these technologies apply is very broad and include the common cancers (sadly with high mortality and morbidity) such as breast, colo-rectal, prostate, lung and melanoma.
Interestingly, work done so far in several centres in Europe and the USA has shown that:
1) The genetic profile of many solid tumours can vary greatly from one part of the same tumour to another part (heterogeneous).
2) In some advanced malignancies (eg:metastatic breast cancer), the way the disease advances is partly determined by clusters of the malignant cells. Such clustering seems to accelerate metastasis.
The potential use of a "tagging agent" such as an Affirmer, which can be : a) Readily tuned to a specific genetic profile. b) Readily identified by laser technology, sounds very exciting indeed for both ctDNA and CTC. Whether breath-carried tumour fragments can be captured and analysed in this way is another matter. Certainly, liquid samples such as plasma, whole blood, urine, possibly saliva could provide a very fruitful area of research. Fascinating and thank you both again for being, to me, the stars of this Board. Good luck and keep safe everybody.
for OEM - should really just say tech partner
DELL is SKIN OEM partner
Gerry asked us to supply 100m units of Affimers for now!
GLA
They have asked AVCT for 100m affimers just mentioned as a guide for volumes.....what do we charge per affimer?
Deepverge have asked Avacta to supply 100,000,000 units worth of affimers!
And other existing viruses - Norovirus just mentioned. Lady said 'we' can create new binders and just slot them in! Like the 'we', teamwork!
GLA
First slide very clearly suggested this device is predominantly for business to test customers and open up the economy (airlines/concerts/sport stadiums) as it needs a box to run the chip through. Avct get royalties form that and we develop the LFT for easy, home use and mass testing.
All those giving AS stick.....the man seems to have every base covered (and future bases for new viruses)
70 cg per mil sensitivity achieved using the breathalyser
affimers just mentioned!
Affimers getting kudos in the demo....
also said he'd name check the technology partner in the AGM, should be interesting
Pricing for SKINs breathalyzer:
Breathalyzer itself costing c£25
monthly replace saline cartridge £3-4
and not totally clear, but insert for each daily test c£3
Wonder what our cut of that is?
And we know just how versatile Affimers are so we could be producing them for chips to detect whatever crazy viruses spring up next (EBOLA/Zika etc) Wouldn't that be amazing, one standard piece of hardware with interchangeable chips to detect whatever awful new viruses come about and Avct are a key component of that.!
watch the interview
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/929892/integumen-plc-to-seek-fast-track-approval-for-its-new-coronavirus-breath-test-929892.html
Just.. just mindblowing Chiron, thankyou.
You see.... anyone daring to suggest that this board lacks intelligence ... read Chiron's last post fer crying out loud.
Then very slowly explain it to me.
Indy
@Chiron, yes very helpful indeed. Cheers
Big big question LivelongnProsper!
Any respiratory infections (TB, pneumonias, viral) one could envisage an affimer panel that could detect all of these in expired breath.
Bit more far fetched but a vision would be one swallows a tablet (packed with different affimers). Each affimer binds to a certain unique area (proteo-glycan or other) say on a cancer target.
Breathed out these unique affimers/cancer complexes are then detected in exhaled breath to tell you which has been detected. The Affimer/cancer complex is so unique it wouldn't be degraded by other metabolic noise. Some complexes might not be volatile enough to be breathed out but maybe excreted in urine or even pin-drop blood sample for example and captured that way.
You might ask but what about SKIN, no tablet involved. I suspect they are directly capturing exhaled viral particles by affimers. Cancer cells themselves are not exhaled hence need some way of tagging them.
One could do the same with any other target conceptually. Now this is pure hypothesis but not beyond realms. Hence why I'm excited by the news today.
Hope that helps,
Chiron
Hail Ophidean! Risen lord! The Light The Way! The Truth!
@Ophidian, thanks. Yes, detecting biomarkers associated with cancer or, perhaps even better, cancer precursors, would be fantastic. New avenue of research (for me) around the nature of such biomarkers, amounts exhaled, limits of detection, etc.
GLA
@LiveLongnProsper - I know your question was directed at Chiron but for my two pennies..... lots of companies have tried developing an "electronic nose" for Cancer diagnosis. You've probably seen the popular TV clips of dogs who can seemingly "smell" Cancer patients. A Breath Analyser (that works) could have multiple applications in this area alone.
Ophidian
@Chiron, very interesting. Are you able to elaborate on what conditions might be detected by using Affimers to bind to something (indicative of, say, a health problem) contained in expired air via a breath test? Thanks.
GLA
Spot on Chiron, it’s a different market and enables a belt and braces approach of an home test alongside a venue based test that ensures that you can have fully Covid free spaces. All those recreational industries that are suffering can be opened up confidently