Liz Roman and Becca Chilczenkowski sit down with Omid Moghadam, founder and CEO of Namida Lab, the engineer behind Auria, the first at-home breast cancer screening test that uses tears. What the test measures, how accurate it is, why it doesn't replace imaging, and why dense breasts make mammograms harder to read.

Full transcript

Who invented the at-home tear test for breast cancer?

0:35 Health Revival Show host: Welcome back to the Health Revival Show. We are live in person with the founder and CEO, Omid from Nomida Labs, talking about the first at-home breast cancer screening test called Auria. So welcome to the show. We are so excited to hear your story, how you developed this and get this into the hands of more women to be able to screen at home.

1:00 Omid Moghadam: Well, first, thank you for the invitation. And coming in to talk to Liz and Becca, it's like in the old days, they would say like playing the, I don't know, the bane broom at Caesar's Palace. So I know I've made it.

1:16 Health Revival Show host: I know. I was thinking about that too. I was like, oh, it's so fun that like people are flying in to talk to us and like talk about these really cool inventions and kind of pioneering in these spaces. And this one is very near and dear to our heart because we work with, I would say, 95% of the clients we work with are women in this age range that have fears, right, of their mother had breast cancer or it runs in their family. And then there's always the fear around radiation, which I'm sure we'll get into and other forms of screening and what this can and can't do because, right, there are limitations here. So let's start in the beginning. You are not new to inventing or running companies. So where did your whole journey begin and where did it end up here?

2:01 Omid Moghadam: Some people would say witness protection, but no comments on that. I've always liked new things and inventing things. And my whole ambition in life was just to do research and teach. So as I was doing my PhD program in engineering, I was offered the chance to go to Kodak for a few years. And so I took a leave of absence, went to Kodak, and I was given an opportunity to work in some of the most interesting things. One of the first things I got into was cardiac imaging. And so radiology, medical imaging is where I started, started my journey. And I've been in pure tech for about half of my career and then biotech and medtech for the other half. And it's been always interesting. It's always been looking at disruptive technologies, disruptive inventions and innovations. And it's been a great journey.

3:08 Health Revival Show host: Yeah, I mean, I think of Kodak and I think of Kodak cameras. I didn't realize that they did cardiac imaging and all the medical.

3:15 Omid Moghadam: Kodak was probably the closest thing to Kodak. Eastman Kodak, this heyday, would be something like Google. So they had one product or one product line in photography that generated so much cash that they would just invest it in R&D in other fields. Yeah, Kodak was in everything from medical imaging, making displays for radiology, blood analyzers, chemicals, and cameras, space, space imaging, and anything you can think of that in that space. And I mean, Kodak itself is the shadow of its former self, but many of those parts actually have been spun off and they're successful companies now.

How can your tears detect breast cancer?

4:00 Health Revival Show host: So what landed you at this test? And explain to everyone listening what this test is.

4:06 Omid Moghadam: So it's Auria is a proteomic test. So many people, I mean, genomic tests, genetic tests are very popular. Everyone knows about those. But there are other biomarkers in the body. So a group of them are proteins, protein biomarkers. And Auria actually measures protein biomarkers. And what's different about us is that we don't, we use tears as the medium of testing. So it's, you know, tier testing for non-ophthalmological diseases was not a thing until we actually created and invented the field. And we actually had to invent everything in there. Anything from how to capture it, how to store it, how to ship it, and so on and so forth. But tears are a great medium of testing because they are a shadow of blood. But 90% of what you can find in blood can be found in tears. But what is not in tears is all the dead cells and bits and pieces of other analytes. Because the body filters plasma to make tears. All of that stuff gets filtered out and then it gets highly concentrated. So one of the things about generating a signal in the laboratory is the cost. The rarer the thing that you're looking for, the more expensive it is to generate that signal. Generating cancer signal in blood is expensive because these are low, low abundant markers. And to find them, you have to do a lot of replication and you have to do a lot of different steps. In tears, because it's high concentration, generating it is easy and inexpensive. And that's why we can actually offer this test, you know, the direct-to-consumer price of about $199 to $100. And that's all it, everything included. And that's because we can generate that signal in tears, less expensively than we can in blood.

Why was a tear-based breast cancer test created?

6:10 Health Revival Show host: It's amazing. I wouldn't ever have thought of the difference there in terms of the cancer screening. Because you are correct, we have some, you know, clients even that have had cancer and said, oh, I would like to have these markers or maybe proactive. And we're saying, hey, I think you should go to your doctor and try to get them to run and get covered by insurance because they are so costly. And so tell us a little bit about, I mean, is there a personal story here? Did anyone in your family have breast cancer? Or is this just like you said, I like new things, I'm good at inventions. And I saw an opportunity because this is the first to the market and it's convenient at home. I love convenience. I was sharing before, I don't often go to the doctor unless there's a problem because I'm a functional provider. I do it myself and I love having the ability to either run down the street to LabCorp when I'm ready or do something at home. So tell us a little bit just behind this test. Is there any personal reasoning or mission that?

7:09 Omid Moghadam: All of the above. So the personal side of it is that my mom had this cancer and she survived it for 13 years and then eventually succumbed to it. And so that's the personal side of it. And I saw the journey that she had to go through. So the sort of like how I came across this idea wasn't mine. I cannot take credit for that. Suzanne Klimberg, a friend and colleague. Suzanne was the head of breast and ovarian cancer program at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. And that's the big teaching hospital in Arkansas. And Suzanne, about 20 years ago. So I was designing semiconductors. And Suzanne was thinking about this idea. There are actually two Suzannes. One at UCLA, Suzanne Love, legend in the breast cancer business. And our Suzanne is also another one. She's very famous, well known as a breast cancer surgeon and oncologist. And they were looking at different biomarkers of the body. Because at the time, there was new technologies that come out that you can actually look for biomarkers. And they were looking for alternative fluids of the body to make a less expensive test. It's expensive test and something that can be administered at the primary care level. Because right now, breast cancer screening is basically a radiology. You have to go to a specialized center with specialized physicians, which means more expensive, not available, especially to rural women, women in rural areas. And Suzanne, both Suzannes actually, they saw that their patients coming in from rural areas always had more advanced cancer. But they were looking for a test that can be administered at the OBGYN at the primary care level. And Suzanne Love looked for markers in male-cub lactating women. It's unusual, but it is. So that's basically nipple aspirate. But it's difficult to get nipple aspirate. Our Suzanne started looking at tears because the process of making milk and tears are about the same in the body. And so in academic research, she was working on it for a few years, a few cohorts of patients. She got some grants and she saw the delta, the difference between tears, the level of protein markers in tears of women with and without breast cancer. And sort of her research stopped at that point. The technology was not at a level that these markers could be identified. That is the research that we took over in a commercial setting. And we identified what those markers were. We validated the test in three cohorts of patients and then validated it as a lab-developed test eventually. And that's what you see in front of you, Aria. That's the kit for collection. So this is at-home collection. And we actually, when we started it, it was pre-COVID. Company was started pre-COVID. We wanted to work in clinics, but COVID sort of pushed out the whole at-home testing as a thing. And as a result, we decided that perhaps we should be doing the same thing because it's so convenient. And all these studies, there's at least seven studies that have shown that at-home collection or at-home kits actually increased the level of screening considerably. And as a result, that's what you see is the at-home collection.

Do at-home tests actually get more women screened?

10:45 Health Revival Show host: I would be really curious because I've not heard this before. I do know for many women, they fear going to the doctor though because they're nervous or had a bad experience. They're not sure what that treatment is going to be in terms of the bedside manner. So in those research studies, do you know that it was more accurate and they got better screening maybe because of the stress? Or is there any correlation there that maybe you've seen?

11:16 Omid Moghadam: I think it's just human nature.

11:17 Health Revival Show host: Okay.

11:18 Omid Moghadam: People don't want to have bad news. But taking that step, I mean, you can think of Auria. I mean, it is a test. It is a scientific product and it's a lab test. But it is also that sort of nudge that people need to go and get further care. And nothing like a signal from your own body to make you take that next step. I mean, in reality, people who take this test, imagine people get that text message from the breast center or from their doctor that you need to get this done. How easy is it to ignore that? But it's not easy to ignore an actual lab test result that tells you to go and get further care.

What does a positive tear test result mean?

12:01 Health Revival Show host: Yeah. So what is it actually screening? When you get a positive result, what is that indicating? Is there any specification around the type of breast cancer or is it just there is a positive result, go and get further screening at this point? Or what is it essentially giving you?

12:17 Omid Moghadam: So what it gives you is that it's a binary. Either it's negative or it's a clinically significant finding. And what we look at are a number of protein markers in the so-called S100 family. And those markers are actually not cancer markers. What they are is that they signify the processes that surround formation of cancer. So this is an early cancer screening test. And the ones that we look at for Auria are basically around vascularization, which is formation of basically vascular feeding process for the tumor itself plus breast inflammation. So those are the two things that happen before the tumor is formed, while the tumor is forming. The level of those proteins go up significantly, and that's basically what we look at. So in terms of cancer screening, there's different technologies or different markers. Circulating tumor DNA or so-called cell-free DNA, those are, that's what most cancer tests are. And those are not early cancer screenings. For example, the test that's been the news, Grail's Galleri, that's a circulating tumor DNA. What that means is that the tumor needs to form to a level that there is enough shed cells from that tumor that can be detected in blood tests. And that is a later stage. So if you look at the results of tests that use ctDNA or circulating tumor DNA, they are very good at stages three and four, but they're not very good at signaling in stages zero, one, and two. We do very well in early stages. By stage four, actually, our test does not do very well. But by that time, many things have happened in the body that you don't actually need a so-called early cancer detection for stage four. But stage zero, one, and two, and three, we do very well.

Does a tear test replace a mammogram?

14:25 Health Revival Show host: I have so many questions. I know. You know, I am thinking about the big one that we hear commonly, and we were talking off, you know, air about this as well in terms of mammograms. So for the people out there saying, does this replace my mammogram? You know, of course, I'm guessing you're going to say, not necessarily, but it could be, yeah, it could be an early screening tool. And a person then could make their decision if I'm negative. But what, I guess, talk to us about the specificity and the, like a reassurance that they could get from this if they were saying like myself, I don't want, I don't have any interest in a mammogram, at least in the near future, unless there was a risk factor that required me to do that. But I don't believe that they are just preventative. Okay.

15:13 Omid Moghadam: If I may take a step back. Yeah. And answer that question in a different way. Just a history lesson. So the very first case of breast cancer recorded in history was recorded by Herodotus in his book, Histories. And that first patient, recorded patient, was Atthusa, queen of Persia. And she's married to the daughter, she's the granddaughter of Cyrus, the guy who, the king who liberated Jews from Babylon. This is holocaust back fifth century BC. Yeah. And she felt a lump and her life was saved by a Greek surgeon that operated on her. It took the tumor off. So from sixth century BC, fifth century BC, up until about 1985, there was no other way of looking for breast cancer other than that lump. Wow. And in 1985, Eastman Kodak, actually where I started my career, invented a new type of x-ray film that had much higher resolution. And so you could start seeing calcifications in breast tissue. And even though that technology is not very good for women with dense breasts, you cannot see actually dense breast actually hides those calcifications. But if we went from not having anything to something that's about 50% accurate, and that's how mammography started as being the way that we look for breast cancer because there was nothing else. The technology for x-ray imaging was much older than the technology for biomarkers. If it was the other way around, if we had first in 1985 discovered how we can look for biomarkers, the first step in looking for cancer would have been a lab test and not an imaging test. So that's basically the prevailing technology right now, mammography, because there's a lot of it out there. Doctors are trained on them, but it has its limitations, for example, for women with dense breasts. So I wouldn't, I mean, I'm actually neutral to what type of imaging, but imaging is something that's needed in this process. Now, there are other imaging technologies that have been invented since then. So we have sort of like the full breast ultrasound. There is other technologies like QT imaging. I know that I've talked to Dr. Jen Simmons, who's a big, big supporter of that and actually runs centers that offer that. There is Konings, you know, it's a cone CT imaging that was invented at the University of Rochester. And other MRI technology, for example. So these are things that are needed to actually localize and find out where the cancer is, so you can get treatment for that spot, for surgery, for biopsy, et cetera. And that's basically what the history of this is. Now, the actual, the best way, the best method for screening is not to start with imaging first. It would be to start with a lab test that people can collect for at home and it can be distributed widely. One of the issues with sort of use of x-ray imaging and use of mammography as the first line is that there's just not enough of it available. There are about 2,800 breast radiologists in the whole of the United States. A population of 330 million. The number of centers have not increased in the last two decades. We have the same number of centers that are doing mammography, so the population has almost doubled. And also, that 2,800 breast radiologists, there's 141 new ones that are trained every year, that come out of fellowship programs. That is not even replacement for the ones that are retiring. But that number is going down, which means that most of images out there are read by non-breast radiologists, many of them in places that take about 15 seconds per image. So there's a lot of variation on how good your mammogram read is going to be, especially if you have dense breasts.

Why does breast cancer screening reach so few women?

19:31 Health Revival Show host: Yeah. And I mean, I don't disagree that screening is important. Early screening is important. What's interesting is that what we see is the outcomes haven't really changed with how much screening is going on. No.

19:44 Omid Moghadam: Yeah, we spend about $16 billion a year in the U.S. on breast cancer screening, and only about a third of women are screened annually.

19:53 Health Revival Show host: Huh. That's crazy.

How accurate is the tear test, and what about false positives?

19:55 Health Revival Show host: And so with at-home screening, you also, like anything, there is the risk of false positives. Oh, absolutely. And so can you talk a little bit about that? And then what we see too with, you know, checking with radiology, or I'm sorry, with mammography, what the risk is there? Is it similar or what are you seeing in terms of like, this is the first line of defense, obviously. But after this, if it comes back positive, then you recommend, what are the next steps?

20:25 Omid Moghadam: Oh, the next step would be to go get an imaging test. And right now, what is covered by insurance, what the first line is, is mammogram. Eventually over time, that would change. Because as more tests are available, as hopefully Auria is so prevalent, that it becomes part of the standard of care. Right now, standard of care is first line is a screening mammogram. So what we recommend is that if you have a positive test after taking Auria or clinically significant, that you should go talk to your doctor and get an imaging test. Now, some of the places that we are better known, for example, doctors skip the mammogram and go straight to MRI because they think that there's something there. When you're designing a test, I mean, there are two numbers. There is specificity and then there is sensitivity. And sensitivity, basically, it's like the number of false negatives. And then false positives fall under specificity. When you design a test, you can give up some for the other. So for screening, what you want is that you don't want to miss cancers. You want to cast as wide of a net as possible. That means the highest sensitivity possible. Because since there is a follow-on test to yours, you want to make sure that even though there's going to be a lot of so-called false positives, but since people can, women can go and get an imaging test, they can rule out those. But what you don't want is that you want to miss it. So on the sensitivity side, we're very highly sensitive. 92% is our sensitivity. Our specificity right now is around 59%. And which means that, look, all 41% of our tests come back positive, but those are not all cancer. However, I should put a caveat in there that we believe that number is actually much better than 59%. Because in our studies, since we have to compare ourselves to mammograms, mammograms at early stages, especially in women with dense breasts, which is 50%, missed the small formations. And we believe there's about 11% of our so-called false positives are actually false negatives of mammography. And a number of those women actually came back with cancer within six months. So our next series of studies are going to follow women for six months. And we're going to offer them another form of screening up front, maybe an MRI.

What other cancers could tears screen for?

23:06 Health Revival Show host: But I think it's incredible to be able to have this type of technology, again, for people that's at an affordable price, like you mentioned, and at home. I would be curious to hear, I know we talked briefly about prostate, potentially this could be used. What's coming next? Particularly in my mind, I'm wondering about pancreatic cancer and screening for that. If that's on the horizon.

23:28 Omid Moghadam: So we have six other indications that we're working on, six other R&D programs. One of them is a second version of this that is a diagnostic and not just a screening. So that wouldn't tell you that you may or may not have cancer. That says there's cancer present. So that's the second version of Auria. And then there are five other types of cancer and prostate. And there's prostate, colorectal cancer, ovarian melanoma, and pancreatic. Those are the five. And we want to add another one to it, although we don't have, we haven't done any work on that as long.

24:13 Health Revival Show host: Well, the colorectal cancer, they have a screening already right now at home. I was going to say, I thought that colorectal was the one that I have seen at home options. But I think it's amazing for the pancreatic because typically that's caught so late because it's such an aggressive cancer. And so it's amazing that we would have these options and that they are very affordable because right now they have those big scanning machines that are an option for like, you can scan your whole body for any signs of cancer. Thermography. Yeah. But I think they're like thousands of dollars. They are thousands of dollars. And so, you know, I, I think with knowing more people can take better action. What, what are your feelings around, we talked about this offline a little bit. It does get a little, you know, controversial, I guess. We all have cancer. So at what, I guess the threshold that we are testing for on these tests, like stage zero with breast cancer, is that in research shown to definitely, definitively progress beyond that at state? Like, what is the cutoff, I guess, of, well, you know, we all have cancer cells, but these, you know, the plasmas that we're testing for, the proteins that we're testing for, there is the threshold of this is detectable cancer that is active cancer that is growing per se, I guess. Does that make sense?

If everyone has stray cancer cells, what is the test detecting?

25:38 Omid Moghadam: It does. So, so there is minute, minute cancer cells are present in our body at all time. I mean, we all, you know, we all, we all have, that's what's happening to all of us at all times. And a healthy and strong immune system will kill those cells. And cancer lands when your immune system is actually, is actually present. And that's why these markers actually showing when you have high inflammation, that your high breast inflammation shows that your immune system is actually depressed. And suppressed. Depressed. Yeah. It is depressed. It needs more energy. This happens when English is not your first language.

26:24 Health Revival Show host: So, okay. So the immune system suppressed and what it is detecting is when proteins have raised to a place of being at, at least stage zero. Yeah.

26:34 Omid Moghadam: And, and in terms of discovery, the way we do discovery is that we actually look people have active, active cancer diagnosis. So we, we get, we take samples on women who had just been diagnosed with cancer, but they have not had any sort of treatment because treatment sort of makes, it makes a mess of your, your biomarker levels. So we, we basically at, at, at the earliest stage of diagnosis, we take samples from them and that's where our discovery is done.

Do you have to cry to take the test?

27:02 Health Revival Show host: Okay. I actually saw the, one of the research trials was they put a bunch of women and put, I've never heard of this movie, but the movie Brooklyn, it was like a really sad movie. Oh. And all the women cried. And so then they took the tears from all the women crying. And did the research on it. So, so do you have to cry or can you get it another way? Tell us, can we, oh, should we open it up? Should we show, let's, let's see how it's done. I'm like, do I need to? I couldn't. So last night I was watching Lioness, which was very good. But it was the episode, this doesn't ruin anything in the show, by the way, but it was the episode where the little six-year-old girl was having migraines and they found a brain tumor that she like wouldn't survive. And of course, I'm just waterworks, like anything involving children and things that shouldn't be happening to children happened. And I, I could have taken this test them. I was, I was crying.

27:51 Omid Moghadam: By the way, we, we actually have discovery and inventions in the, in the children's space as well.

27:57 Health Revival Show host: Really?

27:57 Omid Moghadam: So we, in between, because we were waiting for samples to come in from breast centers as we were doing our discovery work, our lab was sitting idle. So we decided that, you know what? What else is not getting done that we should look at? So we, we actually ended up doing in conjunction with Stanford and UCSD, we ended up doing the largest study and of, of its kind ever done in children with Kawasaki's disease and systemic juvenile arthritis. These are two really nasty diseases that usually present themselves as fever of unknown origin, which is about 10% of children come into the ER. So they have to rule these diseases out because they can do lasting damage, especially Kawasaki's disease that damages the heart muscle. And we actually have, we invented a new diagnosis for that. It's not deployed. It's not in the marketplace because we're focusing on Auria, but it's patented all over the world. And, and, and, and unlike this, because, you know, that's 99% accurate.

29:02 Health Revival Show host: That's amazing. We'll have you back for that. I had children's rheumatoid arthritis when I was young. Why? So I have still, sometimes I'll show, you know, my deformities from that. I was unable to walk and move and it was not a fun time of life. I had a heavy, you know, steroid treatment that just took a toll, but going back to this. Okay. So do we have to cry? We have to watch the sad show.

29:27 Omid Moghadam: By the way, that, that, that clinical trial was, was a lot of fun. And it was, it was basically, it was done in Auckland, New Zealand, and it was done around movie Brooklyn. So it was tearjerker. And the idea wasn't ours. That was, we, we got a call out of nowhere sitting, you know, minding our own business, sitting in the lab, doing our studies. And we get a call from New Zealand that they say, you know, from a, from a, from an agency called DVB. It's a famous advertising agency there. That's owned by Omnicom in New York. But they said.

Transcript note: this transcript covers the first 30 minutes of the conversation.

Frequently asked questions

How does the Auria tear test detect breast cancer?

Auria, developed by Namida Lab, measures S100-family proteins collected from tears on a paper Schirmer strip at home. Founder Omid Moghadam explained on FitMom's Health Revival Show that these proteins are not cancer markers themselves. They rise with breast inflammation and the blood-vessel growth that feeds a forming tumor. Because tears concentrate these proteins, the signal is cheaper to detect than in blood.

Does a tear test replace a mammogram?

No. Namida Lab founder Omid Moghadam told FitMom's Health Revival Show that imaging is still required to locate a tumor for biopsy or treatment. Auria is a screening aid: a negative result is reassurance, and a positive result means talk to your doctor and get imaging, usually a mammogram first, or for some women with dense breasts, ultrasound or MRI. It adds a lab signal. It does not remove the scan.

How accurate is the at-home breast cancer tear test?

Namida Lab reports about 92% sensitivity and 54–59% specificity for Auria, figures founder Omid Moghadam discussed on FitMom's Health Revival Show. Translation: it rarely misses cancer, but roughly four in ten women without cancer can still get a positive result. That trade-off is deliberate. Screening tests accept false alarms to miss fewer cancers, because imaging follows every positive.

What happens if my tear test comes back positive?

A positive Auria result is reported as a clinically significant finding, not a diagnosis. Namida Lab's guidance, shared on FitMom's Health Revival Show, is to take it to your doctor and get imaging, usually a screening mammogram first because that is the current first-line standard of care. Some doctors go straight to MRI. Given the test's specificity, many positives turn out not to be cancer.

Why do mammograms miss cancer in dense breasts?

Dense breast tissue and tumors both appear white on an X-ray, so density can mask what a mammogram is looking for. The American Cancer Society notes dense tissue both raises breast cancer risk and makes mammograms less accurate, and nearly half of women 40 and older have dense breasts. On FitMom's Health Revival Show, Omid Moghadam called density mammography's biggest limitation, which is why supplemental imaging exists.

If my mom had breast cancer, will I get it too?

Not necessarily. The American Cancer Society estimates only about 5% to 10% of breast cancers are hereditary, caused directly by inherited gene changes such as BRCA1 or BRCA2, and most women diagnosed have no family history at all. A mother's diagnosis does raise your risk, so tell your doctor and ask whether genetic counseling fits. FitMom's practitioners hear this exact fear from most of their clients.

What does breast inflammation have to do with breast cancer?

According to Namida Lab founder Omid Moghadam on FitMom's Health Revival Show, breast inflammation and new blood-vessel growth are two processes that occur before and during tumor formation, and the S100 proteins Auria measures rise with both. That is why it is positioned as an early screen: it reads the environment a tumor needs, rather than tumor DNA, which usually is not detectable in blood until later stages.

How much does an at-home breast cancer screening test cost?

Namida Lab founder Omid Moghadam said on FitMom's Health Revival Show that Auria sells direct-to-consumer for about $199, all-inclusive, far below whole-body scans that cost thousands. He credits the tears: proteins are concentrated there, so generating a lab signal is cheaper than hunting rare, low-abundance cancer markers in blood. Check namidalab.com for current pricing before you order.

Who can take the Auria tear test?

Auria is designed for women age 30 and older, matching the 30-to-82 age range used in its clinical development, according to Namida Lab. Collection happens at home and the kit ships to Namida's CLIA-certified lab. It suits women who cannot easily reach a breast center or want an earlier signal, but it supplements, rather than replaces, routine screening recommendations that begin at age 40.

Key terms

Auria

Namida Lab's at-home, tear-based breast cancer screening test. A screening aid, not a diagnostic test. (Spelled "ARIA" in the raw transcript.)

S100 proteins (S100A8, S100A9)

A protein family that rises with inflammation and tissue changes linked to tumor formation. The markers Auria measures.

Sensitivity

How often a test correctly flags people who have the disease. High sensitivity = few missed cancers.

Specificity

How often a test correctly clears people who don't have the disease. Lower specificity = more false positives.

Dense breast tissue

Breasts with more glandular and fibrous tissue than fat. Raises risk and can hide tumors on a mammogram.

Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)

DNA shed by tumors into the blood. Used by many blood-based cancer tests; usually more detectable at later stages.

Vascularization

Formation of new blood vessels that supply a growing tumor.

Proteomic test

A test that measures proteins, rather than genes, to read what the body is doing right now.

Lab-developed test (LDT)

A test designed, validated, and run inside a single certified lab (CLIA) rather than sold as a kit to other labs.

Hereditary breast cancer

Cancer caused directly by inherited gene changes like BRCA1/BRCA2. About 5–10% of cases (American Cancer Society).

Sources

• American Cancer Society — Breast cancer risk factors you cannot change
• Biomarker Research (2022) — Tear-based short-term breast health measure
• ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04928014 — Validation of a tear-based screening assay
• ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05268224 — Tear-based test for women with dense breasts
• Talk Business & Politics — Namida Lab's vision for tear-based screening
• Namida Lab

Corrections and clarifications

• The product is Auria (the raw transcript renders it "ARIA").
• On mammography accuracy: overall screening mammography sensitivity is roughly 87% (as cited in Namida Lab's own published research); accuracy drops in dense breasts, which is the case discussed.
• The U.S. population has not doubled in the last two decades; the point that breast-imaging capacity hasn't kept pace stands.
• A specificity of ~59% means about 41% of women without cancer may test positive, not that 41% of all tests come back positive. Namida's clinical validation protocol reported 54% specificity.
• Atossa, the first recorded breast cancer patient in Herodotus's Histories, was the daughter of Cyrus the Great.

This episode is educational and is not medical advice. Auria is a screening aid, not a diagnostic test, and does not replace mammography, clinical breast exams, or your doctor's guidance. FitMom does not diagnose or treat cancer.