"I think the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be...

"I think the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning.”

Steve Jobs

My friends,

Sometimes Tiresias feels that the world doesn't listen. Tiresias knows that some of his friends listen, but even the most ardent readers may not fully appreciate just what and how big this really is. Tiresias could write a book on this. Last week Tiresias waxed lyrical on the latest out of Memorial Sloan-Kettering; PARPi-fl in cervical cancer. This is the intersection of biology and technology that Steve Jobs was predicting. PARPi-fl, just by itself will revolutionise cancer pathology in the clinic and in the operating room. It enables real-time digital pathology in the clinic. This is a game changer. Thus far, MSK Cancer Center has demonstrated its utility in oral cancer and in cervical cancer. They have also clearly shown that PARP1 over expression in cancers is almost ubiquitous and thus it will be applicable in many other cancers in many other parts of the body. Furthermore, PARPi-fl can be given intravenously prior to the procedure or applied topically at the time of the examination or at surgery. In the simplest case, just think about the skin. The original iteration of Optiscan technology was the Stratum. Although skin cells can be seen even without fluorescein, in practice the Stratum required an intravenous injection of fluorescein before examination. Dermatologists are simple folk, and like a lot of medical proceduralists, driven by Moneta. They would rather cut everything out and throw it to a pathologist and share the considerable lucre. Furthermore, fluorescein by itself is a relatively blunt instrument. It is okay but imagine for every lesion on the skin the examiner of the skin simply applies a touch of PARPi-fl, and with Optiscan even a single malignant can be seen, or malignancy excluded. Don’t expect all the lucrative skin clinics to jump at this, but once the word is out, the payers will force this. And this is just the tip. This is just Tiresias using skin to make it easier for his friends to follow. This procedure followed in so many areas and so many other cancers. This will not be confined to what we have already discussed. It will not be confined to just oral cancer, not just a skin lesion, and not just the cervix. It is now, right now, feasible for throat cancer, oesophageal lesions, the stomach, the bowel the rectum, the bladder, the lungs. Cancer medicine and cancer surgery is changed forever. But, as they say; “That's not all folks.”. There is more. PARP1 is just one molecular marker of cancer, just one. There are already many more known molecular markers and many more are being discovered every year. All are easily visualised by the same technology of a fluorescein labelled monoclonal antibody and Confocal Fluorescent Laser Endomicroscope, Optiscan’s CLE. Real-time molecular cancer pathology is here. But, my friends, this is still more. Molecular histopathology will not be confined to just cancer. All diseases have molecular markers, and these are all proteins, and these too can all be imaged. Just ponder on that for a minute or two, my friends. Contemplate this and think of what Optiscan’s true valuation should be right now.