New blood diagnostic company started by Mike Snyder at Stanford

https://stanforddaily.com/2023/01/20/stanford-researchers-theranos-that-works/


Now, in a research paper published Thursday, Stanford researchers say they’ve accomplished what Theranos was unable to do: they’ve developed a new approach that can measure thousands of molecules with about one drop of blood.

Genetics department chair and senior author Michael Snyder said his lab has combined a microsampling device with multi-omnic technology, a biological analysis approach, to measure thousands of molecules from 10 microliters of blood (about a single drop).

“I call it ‘Theranos that works,’” Snyder said. “Medicine is very antiquated; now, you go to a physician, they draw lots of blood, they measure 10 to 15 things. What we’re trying to do is measure thousands of molecules so we get a much clearer picture of what’s going on.”

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Since the development and findings of this paper, Snyder has spun his research out into two new companies: Rhythm, a chronic condition company that is trying to find markers for better diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 and chronic fatigue syndromes, and Iollo, which will provide wellness profiles for patients from 650 molecules in one’s blood.

 

People may recognize Snyder who Ron Davis has invited to present at OMFs annual symposium in past years. Amazing to see he’s moving this tech directly into diagnostics for our patient population, and obviously related to his awareness of ME due to Ron.

 

"Theranos that works" is not inspiring confidence.

 

Yeah.. unfortunate, but would invite the comparison regardless. They are publishing their data which Theranos couldn’t. And he’s not a college dropout..

 

Nothing wrong with dropping out of college! Point taken about the inevitable comparison.

I hope this works out for them and that there is some kind of progress or knowledge to be gained here.

 

I meant more — he’s a professor, chair of Genetics department, runs his own lab. All means a lot as far as credibility. Elizabeth Holmes was not credible and got funding from people who were really outside the biotech community and didn’t know how to evaluate her tech.
https://med.stanford.edu/snyderlab.html

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-022-00999-8

 

I don't see anything very interesting here. People have been measuring hundreds of molecules in blood samples for decades now - omics. And it hasn't proven terribly useful as far as I know.

I don't see any great advantage in doing it on a drop of blood. Getting 20ml of blood is in my experience more comfortable for patients than trying to get a drop. Standard phlebotomy I have personally found entirely painless and untroublesome. I found fingerpick sampling pretty horrid. What's the big deal?

 

You're right there, it's very stabby into a bit of yourself with loads of nerve endings and it's often very hard to get enough blood out for the job.

 

Ah, it’s not what I expected when I saw the Theranos reference — not what they were proposing, ie. the same diagnostics you get from a blood tube test in a doctors office (CBC, iron panel, virus testing etc), so not really a good analogy. (I think? I am super foggy..)

It’s more about “quantified self” type measurements, and personalized data on response to an event — activity, infection, a meal, menstruation. I’d imagine that to be able to collect high frequency longitudinal data at a personal level could be q revealing. If you can check cortisol, or inflammatory markers, and tie them to symptoms and events, and be given an analysis.

 

The concept behind Theranos wasn't wrong, it just wasn't ready. Think "we have a working nuclear fusion reactor", not "table-top cold fusion". We have neither yet, but one is clearly feasible.

I'd say it's pretty much inevitable that this and even better technology will be developed. Progress in medicine is driven entirely by technology, you just can't rush technological development when the science isn't ready.

Interesting to note they will be targeting chronic illness. It's often said about disease that the pharmaceutical model of curing disease doesn't work, curing people means they won't be repeat customers. But chronic illness is created all the time, it never ends, there are always new people and there's nothing that suggests that if we found the cause and had a cure, that it couldn't happen again to someone who was cured. It's not incompatible with capitalism, which is a real issue when it comes to curing rare diseases.

 

When I was trying to give fingerprick samples it just started hurting so much that I now always refuse them as my fingers are too sensitive and painful. A blood draw is much easier and less painful if a suitable site to draw it from can be found; I also don't see why they can't use paediatric tubes for a smaller size for people who struggle to give a lot of blood. I used to feel affected by blood draws when it was more than 2-3 tubes at a time. (Of course, this was not generally believed.)

 

They have been recruiting for this study.

Stanford University researchers are recruiting ME/CFS, Chronic Lyme, and Long COVID patients for a study to better understand symptom flares such as post-exertional malaise (PEM), or “crashes”.
https://snyderlabs.stanford.edu/crashcourse/

 

Ouch! I remember that. It was definitely painful.

 

Yes!

 

Agreed. Getting a few tubes of blood drawn hurts a little but I know exactly what it feels like, versus the unknown of a fingerstick.

 

Although I dislike finger prick tests for all the reasons mentioned, through experience, I've found very few blood tests performed at baseline have revealed anything wrong. For this reason, I've often thought, “what would results show if tests were carried out when I'm suffering from a relapse, flare-up or PEM?”

Sounds straightforward, but there are several barriers to doing so. First, I experience too much severe and alarming pain to move and my brain, at times, can be extremely fogged, so I'm probably incapable of making the most rational decisions, such as calling an ambulance. Plus, after reading about other people's accounts, I also worry about discrimination I might face from hospital staff if I were to try attending A&E. There isn’t any way of avoiding the emergency route because bloods would then need to be booked in routinely when I'm most likely back to baseline again and will depend on the specialism of the doctor if it were to be arranged by secondary care.

When experiencing a relapse, flare-up or PEM I think a finger prick test could be ideal, depending on the delivery method or if the person with ME has someone who can sort the delivery on their behalf. Access to a wider range of testing in this case due to the lab owner's knowledge of chronic illness could also be more beneficial than testing narrowed down to someone's specialism or the standard battery performed by primary care.



[Edited: due to grammatical errors]

 

As a masochist I fully support this line of research!

On a more serious note what @livinglighter says holds water for me, got not much to add to that other than being curious what comes out.

 

Study discussed here: https://www.s4me.info/threads/multi...th-2023-xiaotao-shen-et-al.31609/#post-457275

 

Fingertip sampling is more painful but it has other advantages. It can be repeated several times a day to track micro changes in a patient with chronic illness. It doesn’t require a trained phlebotomist, doesn’t require a trip to the doctor’s office (useful in places like the US where many ppl don’t have a doctor), can be done at the grocery store or pharmacy, you can test for many more metabolites than the usual 20 or so used by a GP to declare you healthy etc.