Human Practices

Insight on the application of a blood test using the GPC1 detection system

iGEM team members met with an internal medicine specialist, Bibi Zainul, MD., and discussed our project idea as well as applications, should our project succeed. We spoke about the viability of using our yeast as a non-invasive detection tool by performing periodic blood tests on patients who are more susceptible to pancreatic cancer. She made us aware that the tools we require to perform such a test, like a centrifuge and UV lights, are not typically available in most private practice offices and only in some hospitals. She also offered us advice on how to move forward and led us to redesign the application of our project. Due to this, we decided that it would be best to use our project as a lab test that a doctor could order and could be performed off-premises. This affects our project in the following ways:

• Despite going through an intermediate service, reproducible yeast should still be a cheap alternative to current methods of early detection.
• We would have to optimize our test to make it more friendly to a hospital environment if we were to try to make it a test that could be done in the hospital.