In this episode of Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics, Mickey Urdea is presenting this practical guide on the breadth and depth of the proteome! From an overview of the proteome itself to the techniques used to find subsets of proteins of interest that may correspond to a particular disease state, as well as the top technologies available and what separates them from the rest, this episode will serve as your guide for “How To Proceed With Proteomics!”
Feb 26, 2025•48 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Just in time for Thanksgiving, Halteres Associates is serving up a new episode of Interesting Stories In The History of Diagnostics about the microbiome! As you munch on every bite of stuffing, remember that your body is made up of a community of commensal, symbiotic, and pathogenic microorganisms such as bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, and viruses, as well as protozoans and other protists, so you are actually giving a little taste of Thanksgiving dinner to every microbe who’s along for the rid...
Feb 26, 2025•19 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Spatial biology is a new frontier in molecular biology, but so far as we can tell it has not as of yet been explained all that well, so Mickey Urdea is stepping in to answer some questions about this complex study of tissues within their own 2D- and 3D-contexts, and the technologies being utilized to provide insight toward new strategies to prevent and treat disease, in “Making Space For Spatial Biology!”
Feb 26, 2025•20 min•Season 1Ep. 26
In the third and final installment of "Getting Hip To Hepatitis!", Mickey Urdea is recounting the progress that was made, in the immediate aftermath of its discovery, to know more about the Hepatitis C virus, how to measure it, and how to treat it. Armed with alpha interferon, viral load, and some help from Japan, Mickey will walk you through how Hepatitis C went from discovery to treatment, and perhaps someday soon, to a vaccine cure. Tune in for the last word on "Getting Hip To Hepatitis!"...
Feb 26, 2025•22 min•Season 1Ep. 25
In Part Two, Mickey Urdea is picking up where he left off with the discovery of Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis, moving forward to the work that was done for developing accurate RNA tests for Hepatitis C, what genotypes and subtypes were uncovered, how the universally agreed-upon nomenclature and labeling of those subtypes were solidified by him and his team at Chiron, and how surprisingly important genotyping became for appropriate treatment of HCV infection.
Feb 26, 2025•20 min•Season 1Ep. 25
“Getting Hip To Hepatitis!” Part One - On the first part of this two-part series, Mickey Urdea is sharing his perspective on the discovery of Hepatitis C Virus, and the subsequent impact on global health! Part One covers the earliest work on "Non-A Non-B" Hepatitis at Chiron Corporation up to the first approved blood screening test for the newly discovered pathogen, and Part Two will continue on with what happened after that Nobel Prize-winning discovery. Get hip and see all there is to "C" abou...
Feb 26, 2025•16 min•Season 1Ep. 25
On Episode 24 of Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics , Mickey Urdea is buzzing about malaria! Earth's leading mosquito-borne disease affects 247 million people worldwide every year, with about 619,000 deaths. On this episode, Mickey guides you through the massive scope of this parasitic infection, the historic obstacles and solutions for proper diagnosis, the many Nobel prizes that have been awarded for combating this disease, and what problems are yet to solved. Put on your mosqui...
Feb 26, 2025•25 min•Season 1Ep. 24
On Episode 23 of "Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics", Mickey is resurrecting the idea of the "zombie life science company" to elucidate just why diagnostics companies fail. Some life science companies with a great idea turn out to be successes, some end up as failures, and some make a critical error somewhere along the way and are dead before they even know it yet - hence, a zombie! Mickey and the Halteres team performed extensive research as to how life science companies can avo...
Feb 26, 2025•46 min•Season 1Ep. 23
While we tend to associate mummies with Halloween, manmade and naturally occurring mummies are one of science’s greatest sources of the genetics of human history, and analyzing parasites and diseases within their preserved bodies can help unwrap (if you will) the layers of yet-untold stories of how mankind got where we are today. In this episode, Mickey is unsealing the entombed secrets of the Incan Ice Mummies, the smoked mummies of the Torres Strait Islands, what paleomicrobiology is, how the ...
Feb 26, 2025•26 min•Season 1Ep. 22
On episode 21 of "Interesting Stories In The History Of Diagnostics", Mickey Urdea is asking: "Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?" That's no puzzle - it's a palindrome! Yes that's right, he's discussing CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, the hallmark trait of a bacterial defense system that forms the basis for CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology, which can be programmed to target specific stretches of genetic code and to edit DNA at pre...
Feb 26, 2025•20 min•Season 1Ep. 21
On this episode, Mickey Urdea is plunging into the plague! The bubonic plague pandemic, or The Black Death, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, was the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, killing at least 75–200 million people and forever altering the future of Europe and Asia - but where did the plague come from? How did it spread so quickly? Why have we learned so much more about the plague in the last decade? And is it still around today? Mickey is here to tell you, and to sha...
Feb 26, 2025•18 min•Season 1Ep. 20
In Part 1 of this 3-part series on "the emperor of all maladies", Mickey Urdea tracked cancer all the way from Australopithecus bones and Egyptian mummies up to the first days of modern day protein assays for the detection of cancer markers, especially focusing on the contributions of the global pioneer in such assays, the company Centocor. Now in Parts 2 and 3, Mickey Urdea gets to move on to the wide panoply of tests and technologies that exist today for the screening, diagnosis, staging, prog...
Feb 26, 2025•18 min•Season 1Ep. 19
In Part 1 of this 3-part series on "the emperor of all maladies", Mickey Urdea tracked cancer all the way from Australopithecus bones and Egyptian mummies up to the first days of modern day protein assays for the detection of cancer markers, especially focusing on the contributions of the global pioneer in such assays, the company Centocor. Now in Parts 2 and 3, Mickey Urdea gets to move on to the wide panoply of tests and technologies that exist today for the screening, diagnosis, staging, prog...
Feb 26, 2025•13 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Happy New Year to you from Halteres Associates! As we wrap up 2022, Mickey Urdea is just getting started on the history of diagnosing cancer! In Part 1 on this subject, Mickey tracks cancer all the way from Australopithecus bones and Egyptian mummies up to cutting edge modern day protein assays for the detection of cancer markers for potential uses in early detection, secondary screening, therapy selection, recurrence, and beyond, especially focusing on the contributions of the global pioneer in...
Feb 26, 2025•15 min•Season 1Ep. 19
On Episode 18 of “Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics”, Mickey Urdea is reviewing breath-based diagnostics, or what is transpiring with transpiration! Exhaled breath holds many secrets beyond what you ate for breakfast, and analysis of the compounds in breath can help to diagnose SARS-CoV-2, gastrointestinal disorders, and even lung cancer (among many others). New instruments and technologies are emerging and succeeding in the post-pandemic landscape, so it's not a waste of breath ...
Feb 26, 2025•16 min•Season 1Ep. 18
On October 17th, 2022, Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of the now-bankrupt diagnostics company Theranos, will be sentenced after her conviction for one count of wire fraud conspiracy and three substantive wire fraud counts relating to the scheme to defraud investors, including wire transfers totaling more than $140 million. She faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution, for the conspiracy count and each count of wire fraud... but before all ...
Feb 26, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Tick tock, it’s time for some tick talk! On this episode, Mickey is discussing tick-borne diseases – their causes, their related detection technologies, and why climate change might exacerbate the problem worldwide. Lyme Disease receives much of the spotlight (especially given its many famous cases, including Shania Twain and Yolanda and Bella Hadid), but even Lyme is not fully understood (or agreed upon) and there are at least 18 known tick-borne diseases in the United States alone! Don’t let t...
Feb 26, 2025•13 min•Season 1Ep. 16
This week, we’re getting to the very last drop on the subject of wastewater testing! Hot in the news after recent occurrences of polio and monkeypox, as well as for the continued monitoring of Covid-19, wastewater testing is the future of public health monitoring. Breakthroughs in wastewater screening by the CDC and at UC San Diego, among others, have expanded the scope and capabilities of wastewater testing, but ethics questions on who and what to test for have us up to our knees in you-know-wh...
Feb 26, 2025•13 min•Season 1Ep. 15
In the next installment of “Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics”, Mickey Urdea is catching you up on syphilis, the evolution of its symptoms and treatment over seven centuries, and the still hotly-debated subject of whether “the great pox” was originally an Old World or a New World disease! After all, the first recorded European case of “the great imitator” took place in 1495, right after the beginning of the so-called Columbian Exchange, but contemporaneous accounts vary, which ma...
Feb 26, 2025•12 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Dr. Mickey Urdea doesn't want to stir up a can of worms, but he's returning to "This Wormy World"! On this episode, Dr. Urdea gets the opportunity to interview Dr. Govert Van Dam, a Senior Researcher for the Leiden Parasitology Diagnostics Group (ParaDiag) at the Leiden University Medical Centre. Together, Mickey and Govert, a worldwide expert on the detection of schistosomiasis, unpack the latest research on schistosoma-targeted antigen tests, weigh in on so-called "rope worms" and delusional p...
Feb 26, 2025•24 min•Season 1Ep. 13
“Ötzi the Iceman was a jolly happy soul…” Today, Mickey Urdea is discussing Ötzi the Iceman, the natural mummy discovered by accident in 1991 frozen atop the Ötztal Alps between Austria and Italy (which is, of course, how he got his nickname). Besides being the oldest natural mummy of the Copper Age, Ötzi’s story is a tale of international intrigue, unearthed ancient diseases and their possible contemporary therapeutics, and a murder investigation over 5000 years in the making. Buckle your snows...
Feb 26, 2025•11 min•Season 1Ep. 12
On this episode, Mickey Urdea is going with the flow - the lateral flow! The most commonly known type of lateral flow assay is the pregnancy test, but now with self-tests for Covid-19, LFAs are more popular than ever! Mickey gives you the rundown on the development of LFAs and their components, the different common targets for lateral flow tests, and where the technology is today and where it is going (or flowing).
Feb 26, 2025•11 min•Season 1Ep. 11
On this week’s episode, Dr. Mickey Urdea is reviewing palynology, the study of grain, pollen, and other spores, and its use in forensics! Dr. Urdea covers how palynology has been used (or underused) in the 20th century, and discusses two specific criminal cases in which convictions have been determined with palynological evidence. And he's not pollen your leg!
Feb 26, 2025•8 min•Season 1Ep. 10
This week, Dr. Mickey Urdea is weighing in on the reality TV show, "The Biggest Loser"! Having collaborated with the chief medical officer for three seasons of the show's run, Mickey provides a unique perspective on the science behind the extreme weight loss featured in the competition, and he gives the skinny on how, based solely on their bloodwork, he was able to predict contestants' elimination weeks ahead of time!
Feb 26, 2025•7 min•Season 1Ep. 9
In this episode, Dr. Mickey Urdea asks, "Do we have a quorum?" Quorum sensing, that is! Gather round by the light of the bobtail squid to learn more about this phenomenon which allows certain bacteria to “think” collectively as a group in order to express bioluminescence, competence, virulence, and even pathogenesis, and why Mickey believes that quorum sensing has potential dynamic applications in diagnostics.
Feb 26, 2025•6 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Today, Dr. Mickey Urdea gets to discuss his own achievements as the inventor of “viral load”, or the quantitative measure of viral RNA, and as the leader of the team at Chiron Corporation to first utilize this method in order to monitor the effectiveness of antiviral therapy for HIV patients over time – in fact, it’s the method that is still used today! Come hear the story straight from the source, with behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the initial pushback against viral load testing, the Chiron...
Feb 26, 2025•9 min•Season 1Ep. 6
In episode 6, we’re not reading tea leaves - we’re reading saliva! Saliva is a particularly interesting series of compounds that can tell a surprisingly detailed story of a person’s health, and it can be used to test for a variety of different biomarkers which can correlate to a particular disease state, including tests for HIV antibodies, SARS-CoV-2, and even certain forms of cancer! From Yale University’s SalivaDirect protocol for Covid-19 detection to dentists looking to test for oral cancer ...
Feb 26, 2025•6 min•Season 1Ep. 6
This week, Dr. Mickey Urdea is exploring eDNA, or environmental DNA, and its uses and applications in diagnostics! Tune in to hear about wastewater testing, just how much DNA can be found outside of a zoo, and why the half-life of DNA means that we’ll never have a Jurassic Park (sorry, kids!).
Feb 26, 2025•7 min•Season 1Ep. 1
In Part Two of Dr. Mickey Urdea's foray into the history of bacteria, the focus is on the history of bacterial culture, sequencing, and amplification methods, and how those developments changed how we diagnose and treat bacterial diseases! From the work of two-time Nobel laureate biochemist Fred Sanger to the most advanced sequencing panels of the present day and how they're being utilized, Part Two covers it all.
Feb 26, 2025•11 min•Season 1Ep. 4
In this two-part episode of Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics, Dr. Mickey Urdea is discussing bacteria, and why we "Can't Live With 'Em, Can't Live Without 'Em!" Part One of this two-part series canvasses the history of bacteria from the earth's formation to the modern day, and where to find them from the bottom of the Mariana Trench to inside of our own bodies. Tune in for Part Two coming up soon to hear about the history of bacterial culture, sequencing, and amplification metho...
Feb 26, 2025•10 min•Season 1Ep. 4
