Detecting Cancer From a Drop of Blood (The Anti-Theranos)
Summary
TLDRThis video discusses groundbreaking advancements in cancer detection using AI and a single drop of dried blood. Scientists in China have developed a test that could revolutionize early cancer diagnosis, overcoming previous failures like Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos. The script explores the complexity of cancer, its increasing rates, and the potential of metabolites as stable biomarkers. It highlights how AI can detect patterns invisible to humans, offering hope for a cheap, accessible diagnostic tool that could save millions of lives.
Takeaways
- ๐งฌ Scientists in China have developed a test using artificial intelligence that can detect cancer from a single drop of dried blood.
- ๐ซ The script references the Theranos scandal, highlighting the challenge of turning innovative ideas into practical solutions without compromising ethics and accuracy.
- ๐ The script discusses the rising global cancer rates, predicting a 77% increase by 2050, emphasizing the urgent need for better diagnostic tools.
- ๐ The video mentions the potential of metabolites as a new type of biomarker for cancer detection, a shift from traditional markers like microRNAs and proteins.
- ๐ค AI's role in cancer detection is highlighted, showing its ability to recognize patterns that humans cannot, thus improving the accuracy of cancer diagnosis.
- ๐ The script points out the accessibility and affordability of the new blood test, suggesting it could be a game-changer for global cancer detection, especially in underserved areas.
- ๐ฅ The video describes the process of using mass spectrometry and machine learning to analyze metabolic changes from dried blood spots for cancer detection.
- ๐ The script mentions that the new test requires only 0.05 mL of blood, making it less invasive and more cost-effective compared to existing diagnostic methods.
- ๐ก The stability of metabolites during transportation and temperature changes is noted, which is a significant advantage for the test's reliability and practicality.
- ๐ The script touches on the global disparity in cancer detection, with only 5% of cancer spending reaching countries where 80% of cases occur, underlining the potential impact of this new test.
- ๐ฎ The video concludes with optimism about the future of AI in medicine, suggesting that early and affordable cancer detection could soon be a reality.
Q & A
What is the potential breakthrough in cancer diagnosis mentioned in the video?
-The video discusses a breakthrough in cancer diagnosis using a single drop of blood and artificial intelligence developed by scientists in China.
Who is Elizabeth Holmes and what was her original idea related to blood testing?
-Elizabeth Holmes is the founder of Theranos, a company that claimed to be able to diagnose a range of diseases from just a pinprick of blood. However, it was later revealed to be a high-profile fraud case.
Why is cancer considered a complex disease?
-Cancer is complex because it comprises over 200 distinct diseases, each with its subtypes that vary in behavior and genetics.
What is the estimated increase in new cancer cases by 2050 compared to 2022?
-By 2050, there will be an estimated 35 million new cancer cases, which is a 77% increase from the 20 million estimated cases in 2022.
What is a biomarker and why are they important in cancer detection?
-Biomarkers are biological molecules within the body that indicate whether everything is functioning well or not. They are important in cancer detection because they can provide insights into the presence and progression of cancer.
What is a metabolite and how does it relate to cancer detection?
-Metabolites are byproducts of metabolism that can offer insights into the physiological or pathological state of the body. They are considered a promising biomarker for cancer detection because they can indicate cancer progression.
How does the new AI blood testing method work for detecting cancer?
-The new method uses mass spectrometry along with machine learning to analyze metabolic changes from dried blood spots, allowing for the detection of cancer with high accuracy.
What are the advantages of using dried blood spots in cancer detection tests?
-Dried blood spots are advantageous because they remain stable across a range of temperatures, are less expensive, faster to perform, take up less physical space, and are easier to transport, making the test accessible to underserved populations and less developed countries.
What is the potential impact of this AI blood testing method on global cancer detection?
-The AI blood testing method could make cancer detection more accessible, affordable, and accurate globally, especially in underserved areas and less developed countries where cancer is often missed.
What other AI-based cancer detection methods have been mentioned in the video?
-The video also mentions the use of AI to analyze cell-free DNA (CF DNA) fragments released by dying cancer cells to detect liver cancer, and a UK study that theoretically makes it possible to detect cancer 7 years before traditional diagnosis.
How does the video address the issue of media bias in reporting on scientific breakthroughs?
-The video introduces Ground News, a website that provides a data-driven, objective way to read the news, allowing readers to compare different articles, understand media bias, and get a full picture of various perspectives on scientific breakthroughs.
Outlines
๐งฌ AI and Blood Testing for Cancer Diagnosis
The script introduces a revolutionary approach to cancer diagnosis using artificial intelligence (AI) and blood testing. It references the infamous case of Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos, which promised blood tests with a single prick but turned out to be fraudulent. The video pivots to highlight how advancements in AI might turn such an idea into reality, with Chinese scientists developing a test that uses AI to detect cancer from a single drop of dried blood. The episode aims to explore how this technology could change cancer diagnosis and treatment, noting the complexity and increasing rates of cancer worldwide.
๐ฌ Metabolites: The New Biomarkers for Cancer Detection
This paragraph delves into the scientific aspect of metabolites, which are portrayed as the new frontier in cancer detection. It explains how metabolites, the byproducts of cellular processes, can serve as indicators of physiological or pathological states within the body. The script likens metabolites to exhaust smoke from a car, with AI acting as a sensor to analyze these biomarkers for signs of cancer. The study mentioned utilizes mass spectrometry and machine learning to scrutinize changes in metabolites from dried blood spots, achieving high accuracy in detecting cancer. The AI's ability to recognize patterns invisible to humans is emphasized, along with the advantages of using dried blood for its stability and cost-effectiveness, making it a promising tool for global health equity.
๐ Ground News: Unbiased News Consumption
The final paragraph shifts focus to the importance of unbiased news consumption, introducing Ground News, a platform developed by a former NASA engineer. It offers a data-driven, objective way to read the news, using the example of how different news outlets cover the AI and cancer story. The platform provides tools to assess media bias and compare various articles on the same topic, helping users become critical thinkers. The script promotes a 40% discount on the Ground News Advantage subscription, which includes features like 'my news bias' and a 'blind spot feed' to ensure well-rounded news consumption.
Mindmap
Keywords
๐กArtificial Intelligence (AI)
๐กCancer
๐กMetabolites
๐กBiomarkers
๐กDried Blood Spots
๐กMass Spectrometry
๐กEarly Detection
๐กElizabeth Holmes
๐กUnderserved Populations
๐กClinical Trials
๐กCell-Free DNA (cfDNA)
Highlights
Scientists in China have created a test using artificial intelligence that can detect cancer using a single spot of dried blood.
The idea of diagnosing diseases from a pinprick of blood was proposed by Elizabeth Holmes with Theos but was deemed impossible at the time.
Advancements in AI may now make early and accurate cancer detection from a drop of blood possible.
Cancer is complex, with over 200 distinct diseases, each with varying subtypes in behavior and genetics.
By 2050, there will be an estimated 35 million new cancer cases, a 77% increase from the 20 million estimated cases in 2022.
Early onset cancers have increased by 79% for those under 50, indicating a shift in the demographics of the disease.
80% of Asian-American women with lung cancer have never smoked, and they are 1.5 to 2 times more likely to be diagnosed than any other racial group.
Currently, there are no reliable or standalone blood tests that can diagnose deadly diseases such as pancreatic, gastric, and choral cancer.
A new study suggests a method to detect the world's deadliest cancers with an accuracy of 82% to 100% of the time.
Metabolites, the focus of modern cancer research, offer insights into cancer progression and are considered the best biomarker for cancer.
AI can recognize patterns that humans can't see and extract useful information from them, improving diagnostic accuracy.
The new non-invasive test requires just 0.05 mL of blood and is less expensive, faster, and more accessible than current tests.
Dried blood spots are stable across a range of temperatures and are cheaper to transport, making the test accessible to underserved populations.
Metabolites stay stable during transportation and temperature changes, providing highly accurate diagnostics.
AI has been used to detect more than 80% of liver cancers by analyzing cell-free DNA fragments released by dying cancer cells.
UK scientists have theoretically made it possible to detect cancer 7 years before traditional diagnosis using AI.
Ground News provides a data-driven, objective way to read the news, helping readers understand different perspectives and media bias.
AI's application in medical diagnostics shows promise, with the potential to save millions of lives through early detection of cancer.
Despite the hype and skepticism around AI, its use in pattern recognition and prediction in data can be highly beneficial in many fields.
Transcripts
this video is brought to you by ground
news Dr Malik Marshall is here with us
now doctor we could soon diagnose cancer
with a single drop of blood now can you
believe that these are scientist in
China that created a test using
artificial intelligence that can detect
cancer using one spot of dried blood hi
welcome to another episode of Cold
Fusion we all remember Elizabeth Holmes
and Theos it was one of the most
high-profile fraud cases in recent
memory her original idea was simple from
just a pin PRI of blood patients could
get a diagnosis of a range of diseases
and when you think about it it was a
pretty good idea the only problem was it
was imposs Holmes with her delusions of
grandeur thought that she could be the
next Steve Jobs and change the world the
end result was investors that were
scammed out of tens of billions and the
health of innocent patients put at risk
but what if she was just a little ahead
of her time what if thanks to the
advancements of AI The Impossible Is Now
possible multiple Studies have shown
very promising signs the detection of
cancer all from a drop of blood in this
episode we'll see how advancements and
blood testing as well as AI may change
the fight against cancer
forever you are watching T Fusion
[Music]
TV cancer is a terrible thing it rips
families apart and ravages the bodies of
those suffering it's been causing
destruction since its earliest
documentation in ancient Egypt yes
fossilized bone tumors have been found
from 5,000 years ago and you'd think
after all of this time we'd have figured
out something by now but the hard truth
is this cancer is so relentless because
it's complex comprising of over 200
distinct diseases each with its subtypes
that vary in behavior and genetics for
this reason despite technological
advancements Innovation and Relentless
research cancer rates are still on the
rise by 2050 there will be an estimated
35 million new cancer cases and that's a
77% increase from the 20 million
estimated cases in 2022 in a few short
years for the first time in history
cancer is on track to be Humanity's
number one killer but are we just seeing
more cancer cases because our diagnosis
tools have gotten better it's possible
but recent Trends are screaming
something else cancer has always been
thought of as a disease of the old but
what if I told you that that's changing
early onset cancers have increased by
79% for those under 50 so something else
is going on is it obesity
ultra-processed diets stress even toxic
forever chemicals like pasas have been
blamed and then there's the very strange
phenomenon of specifically Asian
non-smoking women ending up with lung
cancer at 150 to 200% of the rate of
other communities this afternoon we want
to shed light on a condition impacting
more and more Asian-American women and
it remains a mystery as to why and now a
Bay Area based study finds that 80% 80%
of Asian-American women with lung cancer
never smoked they're also one and a half
to two times more likely to be diagnosed
than any other racial group scientists
really don't have an answer for any of
it but there's hope so let's take a look
at
that where you live can determine your
odds of survival the best thing to do
for cancer is to detected early as that
dramatically increases our chances of
survival but there's a problem there are
currently no reliable or Standalone
blood tests that can diagnose deadly
diseases such as pancreatic gastric and
choral cancer and this is why the lack
of approved biomarkers biomarkers are
biological molecules within the body
that tells doctors if everything's
functioning well or not instead doctors
have to rely on Imaging or surgical
procedures each Limited in their own way
but what if there was a way to detect it
extremely early even before symptoms
what if it could be done in such a way
that it's cheap and affordable and
within the reach of worldwide
communities that sounds insane but we're
actually on the verge of it happening
today in the past few months and years
there's been a silent Revolution going
on with AI blood testing and cancer this
new research paper says that there could
be in fact a way to detect pancreatic
gastric or chexal cancer and get the
diagnosis right 82 2% to 100% of the
time they've come up with a method to
detect the world's deadliest cancers
with staggering accuracy so how did they
achieve such remarkable
accuracy to fully answer that question
we first need to take a step back and
understand some background here and it
all starts with
metabolites modern cancer research
focuses on the discovery of biomarkers
but recently scientists have zeroed in
on a new one metabolites without getting
to into the Weeds on this here's the
tldr version otherwise this video could
be hours long think of it like this our
genetic makeup combined with the
proteins in our body give insights into
our normal physiological state or an
abnormal pathological state are things
in the body going well or poorly
metabolites can offer insights into
cancer progression and scientists have
found this measure to be probably the
best biomarker for cancer but how does
it
work imagine your body is a petrol car
that's running the exhaust smoke is the
metabolite and imagine that there's a
sensor that measures the composition of
the exhaust smoke the sensor is the AI
in our example if the engine isn't quite
right then there can be some telltale
signs such as changes in the composition
of the exhaust Smoke by using the sensor
in this crude example how do we
interpret the data and tell exactly
what's wrong with the car just by the
sample of exhaust smoke you'd have to
build a system that can associate slight
variations in Smoke composition with a
particular engine problem well this is
where the AI comes in in this example
the AI is the sensor which is reading
the exhaust smoke which are the
biomarkers and in the world of cancer
research recently using artificial
intelligence like this is becoming more
common but the thing is targeting
metabolites aren't new it dates back to
1947 and the work of Dr Sydney Farber
known as the father of modern
chemotherapy however really getting to
the bottom of cancer cell metabolism has
always been impeded by the technological
capabilities it was almost impossible to
actually handle and analyze the chemical
complexity of all those metabolites and
their patterns it's just way too hard to
do by hand or by most hard-coded
[Music]
programs with that background being
understood now we can get into the study
in the study scientists used a special
kind of mass spectrometry they used this
along with machine learning to analyze
metabolic changes from dried blood spots
the system was able to analyze complex
metabolic data with
accuracy in previous studies artificial
intelligence was found to be almost
twice as accurate in assessing the
aggressiveness of certain kinds of
cancer so this is AI in action what do
we see here AI circled this area in red
and said this area has a dangerous
pattern it looks like cancer might come
up 2 years later there's a cancer right
in that same spot where the AI predicted
it would be and right there is the Crux
of it AI can recognize patterns that
humans can't see and extract useful
information from it it's pretty ironic
when you look at all the AI scams going
on there are good sides too and plus in
this case the more samples the AI
processes the more accurate the
predictions and there's more good news
this method is less cumbersome and also
cheap this new non-invasive test would
theoretically require just 0.05 mL of
blood now if this sounds familiar it's
because we've heard similar promises
before so what's different this time
dried blood for starters dried blood can
be analyzed right away they remain
stable across a range of temperatures
and are cheaper to transport they found
the blood spot test had greater accuracy
than current tests youing using whole
blood in fact the spot test was more
heat stable it was less expensive faster
to perform took up less physical space
and was easier to transport making the
test particularly accessible to
underserved populations and less
developed countries where cancer are
often missed but it sounds remarkable
and so much less expensive than all
these other diagnostic tests that people
are going through right now incredible
Okay the reason you're only hearing
about this now is because previously
common cancer biomarkers such as
micrornas and proteins couldn't handle
the drying process and this is because
it messed up the test accuracy but when
scientists shifted their focus to
metabolic biomarkers they discovered
that metabolites stayed stable during
transportation and temperature changes
and they still provided highly accurate
Diagnostics we're still missing the mark
on a diagnostic Solution that's
accessible to all only 5% of global
cancer spending reaches the countries
where 80% of the cancer cases are and
less than 30% of poorer income countries
have the diagnostic tools they need most
cancer detection methods are costly and
require specialized staff but even in
countries with access to such methods
there are significant drawbacks pet
scans can Overlook small tumors and also
interpretations can vary from Doctor to
doctor biopsies are of course invasive
and hard to come by globally regular
blood tests lead to many false positives
and endoscopies come with their own side
effects so with this new Innovative
Fusion of dried blood serum metabolite
biomarkers and artificial intelligence
you can see why heads are turning and
ears are perking up and this will be
especially beneficial for underserved
areas with limited resources incredibly
this is not the first time AI has been
used in this exact
way back in 2022 researchers at John
Hopkins kiml Cancer Center found that AI
could detect more than 80% of liver
cancers however in this study of 724
people a different biomarker was used
DNA fragments you see when cancer cells
die they release DNA fragments into the
bloodstream this is known as cell-free
DNA or CF DNA CF DNA can come from both
healthy and cancerous cells but
cancerous cells exhibit irregular
patterns of fragmentation so the
researchers used machine learning to
examine millions of of these fragments
and then amazingly they could identify
the subtle patterns associated with
cancer awesome stuff another recent
breakthrough has been achieved by UK
scientists their work theoretically
makes it possible to detect cancer 7
years before traditional diagnosis but
it's also interesting to see how the
news is covered and that's where today's
sponsor ground news comes in ground news
is a website developed by a former NASA
engineer she was on a mission to give
readers an easy datadriven objective way
to read the news using this cancer story
as an example we can see that 26 news
outlets covered around the world their
biased distribution chart shows me the
political leanings of those news outlets
and I can get a summary of how the issue
was being framed the left tended to use
heavier language like warning signs and
deadly while the riot didn't have such
language in this case for more
politically charged stories ground news
is extremely helpful to get a full
picture of the different perspectives
scrolling down I can compare every
single article on the topic with
convenient tags showing me cont text
about the source like how factual it is
and who owns it ground news is a
fantastic tool for getting International
views sifting through misinformation and
identifying media bias they provide all
the tools you need to be a critical
thinker today we're offering 40% off
Advantage subscription this comes with a
new feature called my news bias so you
can even check how your news viewing
habits change over time one of my
favorite features is the blind spot feed
this shows you stories that are
underreported by one side of the
political Spectrum for example if you
lean left you probably miss the story
about the largest number of people
crossing the English Channel in a day
this year go to grounds.com coldfusion
to get started thanks okay now back to
the
video so while this is all very
encouraging we have to take a look at
the whole picture we're still
realistically a few years away from
these AI powered techniques being put to
work to up those diagnosis rates major
clinical trials require a lot of money a
lot of trial patients and a lot of
regulatory Cycles I still think it's
clear that there's New Hope in the fight
against cancer it's a multi-pronged
approach that combines new cancer
Discovery utility practicality and the
most powerful new technology thinking
about it with AI bolted onto the side of
human Ingenuity we could see a new error
in the medical field now everyone could
have access to a cheap and easy method
to detect cancer just walk into your
local doctor's office take a pin prick
of blood and get your results the
algorithms will only get better and
ultimately millions of lives could be
saved with early detection how cool
would that be so at this point I think
it's fairly normal to have mixed
feelings about AI on the one hand it's
overplayed overhyped there's fraud lying
and employment theft in some sectors but
on the other hand it can do some amazing
things basically anything that involves
patent recognition and prediction
through data can be enhanced through Ai
and that's a lot of stuff you just have
to think outside the box sometimes times
all in all I don't think anyone can be
mad at this application it's very
interesting isn't it anyway thanks for
watching my name is toogo and you've
been watching cold fusion and I'll catch
you again soon for the next episode
cheers guys have a good
[Music]
one cold fusion it's me thinking
[Music]
you something to me something
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