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Podcast: The Future of Everything
Episode: Ash Alizadeh: A New Age in Oncology
Description: In cancer detection, could a blood test replace a biopsy?
Once, when a cancer was suspected, the next move often involved a biopsy – literally cutting out human tissue to ascertain malignancy. But that highly invasive model is now being overshadowed by the promise of “liquid biopsies.” In these non-invasive approaches, blood, spinal fluid and other bodily liquids are drawn and tested for the presence of cancer cells, bits of DNA or other molecules that are the unmistakable markers of serious disease. Often, such non-invasive biopsies can be done before clinical symptoms appear.
Ash Alizadeh is an authority on the rapidly evolvi...