The article Diagnosis by Extracellular Vesicles, written by Clotilde Théry, is about a test that tried to help detect patients with late stage pancreatic cancer before it fully develops. This is done by taking a simple draw of blood from the patient and then testing it. The test will identify the levels of glypican-1 (GPC1) in vesicles within the blood stream as well as the levels of a pancreatic tumor biomarker called carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA 19-9). To gather this data, Sonia A. Melo and her various other colleagues (the ones who conducted the research), tested on mice and also serum from various other human patients who had already been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Results showed that healthy patients contained higher levels of CA19-9 and lower levels of GPC1, while those with diagnosed pancreatic tested for lower levels of CA19-9 but higher levels of GPC1. In the end, Melo and her colleagues reported that the test gave one hundred percent certainty. The only downfall to this test is that it doesn’t detect other cancers. It is only able to detect early stages of pancreatic cancer.

For this research, because Théry wrote about someone else’s work, the type of data collected was reports of Melo’s work, and so therefore the method of collection was public and private records. To analyze the data collected, Melo compared the levels of CA 19-9 and GPC1 within patients of pancreatic cancer and those of healthy patients, but Théry ultimately described Melo’s work while analyzing it.

I believe that this research was conducted well and will ultimately be very beneficial to today’s society. There did not seem to be any bias or large-scale mistakes and so if presented to where this test can be done in a seemingly more affordable manner, it can be a useful tool in helping to save many lives in the future.