So I spoke to my partner who is a microbiologist and she appears...

So I spoke to my partner who is a microbiologist and she appears to have a solid understanding about what RHS is doing as she studied this field quite recently at university.


I thought I'd post a quick dot-point summary of relevant stuff for any non-science-y people like myself:

- Current IVF technology is not very reliable because they screen clusters of cells for genetic abnormalities as opposed to single cell screening (which is what DIPOlify does).

- DIPOlify amplifies a single DNA and allows the scientist to pick apart the genome so much that it can screen to pick up different things like Sickle cell anemia or Down Syndrome in 1 piece of DNA. Typically these abnormalities have a particular 'sequence' and can be identified

- DOPlify appears to be specifically targeting IVF at the moment (but appears to be expanding and doing a renaming of the company to demonstrate this company change).

- An example of how targeting sequences is currently done:
Imagine a sperm sample having 10's of thousands of single cells. The scientist would screen a cluster of these single cells and occasionally pick up abnormalities and defects in the DNA, however it is inefficient.
It's almost like having 1 puzzle piece and shoving it into a bucket of other pieces and hoping it will connect with any existing puzzle pieces which confirm that a signature for an abnormality exists.
Do that with 1 puzzle piece like down syndrome, then try it with another puzzle piece like Sickle cell Anemia, and keep testing this way until the screening is complete. Of course it's more complex than this, but it gives you a rough idea.

- DOPlify seems to have the resolution in their technique to pick up these potential problems with high accuracy (last ann. stating 100% succes rate?) at a single cell level.

- RHS's Biggest competitor would be Picoplex. However they (and others) have a significant issue of contamination. It occurs far more often than what would be considered 'acceptable' by the scientific community. I read a paper of PICOPLEX's next gen sequencing having an issue of 5% contamination based on a 112 sample sizes..
(Information on this can be found in an article called: Diet Microbiome interactions in health are controlled by intestinal nitrogen source constraints, Jan 2017 published by Elsevier).
However Picoplex are the best option currently available.
DOPlify is apparently minimising this issue according to their investor presentation, however no clarification on how that I can see just yet. It appears that RHS are using a different technique to reduce this number.


Existing concerns with RHS:
Latest announcement does not specify the sample size or any details whatsoever about the 100% accuracy and sensitivity testing performed. 100% is obviously a good sounding number, but it means jack sheeeet if the sample size is tiny. It can almost be considered useless data.

I sent an email to the company to clarify this information, as it's extremely important.
We don't want a repeat of the NEU issue where the announcement said by the chief scientist "wow this is so amazingly significant" but the P value was only 0.05 which was atrocious, and their SP subsequently fell from 90c to 70c.


What does it value this company at? Don't have the slightest clue.
Need further research into Rubicon who was bought out for $75m and see if we're really comparing apples with apples here.