1. Reflection on Leidy’s Seminar
In this week seminar we had as a guest Leidy Alvarado, who shared with us her
current research conducted in Purdue University located in Indiana. She is a current
Ph.D. student focusing on the area of breast cancer. The title of her seminar was:
Early detection of recurrent breast cancer using metabolite profiling.
Breast cancer is still the leading cause of death among women worldwide. In this
experiment they used a combination of NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) and GC x
GC – MS (two- dimensional gas chromatography – mass spectrometry) to analyze the
metabolite profiling. They used metabolite profiling because it can detect diseases
based on a panel of small molecules. Metabolite profiling has various applications
like early diagnosis, and the investigation of metabolites pathways, among others.
Understanding that blood serum metabolite was sensitive to recurrent breast cancer,
they applied metabolite profiling to investigate it.
From the forty biomarkers researchers had initially, they narrowed it down to eleven
basing it on their ranked performance. The biomarkers were chosen using the method
of sensitivity vs. specificity. Sensitivity means the proportion of actual positives (sick
people with the condition) and specificity means the proportion of negatives (healthy
people without the condition). In the phase of clinical diagnosis metabolite profiling
detected 75% of recurring patients compared with CA 27.29 marker that detected only
16%. As result of the improved screening 55% of the recurring patients were
diagnosed thirteen months earlier than by traditional clinical diagnosis. As they
deliberated their results, they stated that there would be an improvement on early
detection and better treatments as result of the combined detection procedure.
These were just some of the terms she shared with us and as a student who wants to

2. study in the area of oncology I found it very interesting. One thing she mentioned that
touched me was when you have a PhD you will always be learning but you become a
leader. Hearing those words from her inspired me to keep firm in what I want, take
risks and embrace every opportunity that comes in my life.