Biomarkers as diagnostic test
A brand-new research programme to investigate biomarkers in human saliva to determine whether there are any of interest that can be used as a diagnostic test!
This is what Associate Professor Chamindie Punyadeera has pioneered in Australia.
A biomarker has been defined as ‘any substance, structure or process that can be measured in the body or its products and influence or predict the incidence of outcome or disease’, by the International Programme on Chemical Safety, led by the World Health Organization (WHO).
When asked how it will impact on people, Prof. Punyadeera says that saliva samples from people who are at higher risk of developing oral cancer can be sent to a company called Viome in the US for analysis.
At higher risk for oral cancer, strongly relevant to Sri Lanka too, are those who engage in betel-nut chewing, excessive smoking and drinking. People with bad oral hygiene or those who have multiple sexual partners, engage in oral sex or are immune-compromised such as HIV/AIDS patients are more vulnerable to throat cancer.
Explaining the processes, Prof. Punyadeera says that they used human microbiome (bacteria in the mouth) as a source of biomarkers to discern whether they can detect mouth and throat cancers early.
“We have published research papers on this topic and I have one PhD student, Dr. Yenkai Lim, graduating with an outstanding thesis from QUT. I have been researching with a company based in USA to utilise their highthroughput metatranscriptomics platform combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning to advance our research,” says Prof. Punyadeera.
Prof. Punyadeera was an inventor on the patent and the intellectual property has been assigned to the company. The company has got FDA approval under the ‘Breakthrough Device Designation’ recently.
Getting down to technicalities, she says that using their platform, her team has developed a biomarker panel with bacterial transcriptomics (gene expression changes) to detect mouth and throat cancer early.
Her team’s breakthrough research has been published as ‘The salivary metatranscriptome as an accurate diagnostic indicator of oral cancer’ with the authors: Guruduth Banavar, Oyetunji Ogundijo, Ryan Toma, Sathyapriya Rajagopal, Yenkai
Lim, Kai Dun Tang, Francine Camacho, Pedro Torres, Stephanie Gline, Matthew Parks, Liz Kenny, Nevenka Dimitrova, Ally Perlina, Hal Tily, Salomon Amar, Momchilo Vuyisich, Chamindie Punyadeera, 2021, Research Square.
Some of the other important studies generated from Prof. Punyadeera’s lab are: ‘Oral microbiome: a new biomarker reservoir for oral and oropharyngeal cancers’; ‘The saliva microbiome profiles are minimally affected by collection method or DNA extraction protocols’; ‘The performance of an oral microbiome biomarker panel in predicting oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancers’; and ‘Chemoradiation therapy changes oral microbiome and metabolomic profiles in patients with oral cavity cancer and oropharyngeal cancer’.