Urine is the penultimate ‘liquid biopsy’, not only of the genitourinary tract, but the body as a whole. It is formed continuously, varies in composition depending on renal anatomy, physiological function, diet, state of hydration, disease processes, and the kinetics of metabolism. Normal urine contains more than 2500 distinct types of molecules but relatively few of these molecules are analyzed with standard urinalysis. Urine is an unappreciated diagnostic resource – figuratively and literally a ‘Gold Mine’ of important information.
Analysis of the chemical composition of the entire chemical urine molecular spectrum (>2500 distinct types of molecules) requires specialized laboratory-based analytical technologies, including chromatography and mass spectrometry – and is rarely done, even in human medicine. Technologies for exhaustive urine molecular profiling have not been adopted for POC disease detection and management, due largely to expense and technology requirements, as well as a lack of representative database, requiring thousands of samples from ‘healthy’ humans.
We developed Rametrix ® Urine Molecular Fingerprinting (UMFs) by profiling clinically healthy humans and then applied it to people with a variety of non-neoplastic and neoplastic diseases. The results of this work, demonstrating the value of UMF technology, are found in peer-reviewed publications and manuscripts under consideration for publication.
Key findings of this work: