Andrew T Harris

Discriminating normal and cancerous thyroid cell lines using implicit context representation Cartesian genetic programming

In this paper, we describe a method for discriminating between thyroid cell lines. Five commercial thyroid cell lines were obtained, ranging from non-cancerous to cancerous varieties. Raman spectroscopy was used to interrogate native cell biochemistry. Following suitable normalisation of the data, implicit context representation Cartesian genetic programming was then used to search for classifiers capable of distinguishing between the spectral fingerprints of the different cell lines. The results are promising, producing comprehensible classifiers whose output values correlate with biological aggressiveness.

Chapter 1:Vibrational Spectroscopy: What Does the Clinician Need?

Modern medicine demands rapid, consistent and reliable techniques for population screening, clinical and laboratory diagnosis, prediction of treatment outcomes and to guide the use of ever more expensive therapeutic agents. This chapter will explore clinical need using examples of major diseases and...

Chapter 10:Head and Neck Cancer: Observations from Synchrotron-sourced Mid-infrared Spectroscopy Investigations

In this chapter, we will look at the place of vibrational spectroscopy in head and neck (H&N) cancer diagnosis from the point of view of clinical need and biological diversity. Taking research in this field towards application requires close collaboration and understanding between spectroscopists an...

p53 gene mutations in surgical margins and primary tumor tissues of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck

Dear Editor, We read with interest this study by Tunca et al.1 about p53 gene mutations in surgical margins and primary tumor tissues of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The authors concluded that there was no statistically significant association between the presence of p53 mutations in the primary tumor and the outcome of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. In addition, they concluded that the presence of p53 mutations in the surgical margins may not increase the risk of local-regional recurrence1. Although no statistical significance was demonstrated in this study, the conclusions fail to take into account a number of important parameters. This study was conducted on heterogeneous tumor tissue specimens that contain functionally diverse groups of cells. The clinical relevance of this is not fully understood2 and hence the effect on the results is not known. DNA assays that perform well in laboratory dilutionsmay not be as reliable in clinical samples in which various contaminants, necrosis of the tumor, and degradation of DNAmay introduce significant confounders on the data3. Finally, the effects of the host immune response are not taken into account in the discussion.