Meet: ARNA
Hello everybody!
Today’s theme is:
Meet: ARNA
ABOUT MYSELF
I am Egor Melnikov, the founder of the ARNA project.
I’m 36 years old, was born into a family of scientists. Parents met at the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University in the 1970s, got married and moved to the Moscow region, a new and very modern the science town of Pushchino. My brother and I were born there. I finished school with top scores. I completed college in field of Economics and I have spirit of entrepreneur. I acquired professional experience building companies from scratch.
I did the first startup in 2002 while preparing graduate work of the college. We literally lived in the office. By 2015, this business has grown 10-fold. I have managed the automation processes of the Scientific Library of the Moscow State University as the head of a large department, launched from scratch the American franchise in international logistics, worked as the director of the integration projects department of the telecommunications company, headed the telecommunications company with license for long-distance and international communication as an anti-crisis manager. Every project was successful.
I have many friends, most of them are from Pushchino: physicists, mathematicians, programmers, doctors.
THE BEGINING
In 2012, we decided to start the ARNA project, although the concept was formulated back in 2003 when we were in the main building of the Moscow State University.
In 2013, we opened “Biomarker-ru” LLC, passed an expert council and became participants in the Skolkovo Foundation.
In 2014, the first on the basis of RCRC, Blokhin, the largest state oncological center in Rusia, a private research laboratory was founded, funded by a group of friends (3F seed-round), later the laboratory moved to the research institute, north of Moscow.
ABOUT THE FATHER
Scientific unit was headed by my father — Melnikov Anatoly Alexandrovich — the creator of ARNA technology.
The life story of our main scientist is a separate interesting topic, here is a link to the material that was recently published on Medium.
https://medium.com/@arnagenomics/who-is-dr-anatoly-melnikov-6ec81f52e0fb
Also, I’ll talk about the wonderful members of our team and the respected advisers of the project in a separate letter.
THE FIRST PRODUCT
The first product, created by ARNA Genomics, we called the ARNA Onco Thermometer, by analogy with a conventional thermometer. The test answers the question: is there currently an oncological process in the body or not.
Conducted experts councils of the Skolkovo Foundation greatly helped the project to understand how to develop the project, for which we are grateful to the foundation.
The main conclusion: it is necessary to do a test specific for one type of cancer.
(Colleagues from the CANCERSeek project, which was recently mentioned in the article in the respected journal SCIENCE, also in this article makes this conclusion. We made it 4 years earlier. And since I remembered about this article in SCIENCE — do not miss our review: https://medium.com/@arnagenomics/arna-comments-trending-article-from-science-23f91aa8b80b)
So, we have chosen breast cancer as one of the main killers to date.
OUR SECOND PRODUCT
Based on the technologies we learned, having worked additionally about hundreds of candidate genes for inclusion in the test, we created an even better and more accurate test for earlier detection of breast cancer (for all forms of breast cancer). We called it ARNA BC https://token.arnagenomics.com/docs/2_ARNA_BC_Presentation_EN_30.pdf . Our current investors have made a “blind experiment”, which was conducted in conditions when scientists do not know what samples correspond to healthy donors, and which ones — to the diagnosed patient.
The result was more than 97%. Our overall statistics for all conducted tests of ARNA BC today holds a level — more than 95%.
EVIDENCE
The existing system for proving effectiveness in pharmaceuticals or oncology is based on “clinical trials”, where the main test parameters are
1. Independent testing,
2. Blinded trials. That in its essence is undeniable.
However, the current system is also characterized by a whole heap of problems and obstacles in the way of new products to the market. Bureaucracy, lobbyism, the exploitation of a monopoly or oligopoly position on the market, there are many of them, but they all boil down to securing the commercial interests of strong market players, which in turn reduces the transparency and objectivity of the process. We paid much attention to this issue in WhitePaper — 49 pages.
https://token.arnagenomics.com/ARNA_whitepaper_en.pdf
Shortly highlighted in the Project Summary — 3 pages.
https://token.arnagenomics.com/docs/4_Executive_summary_EN_3.pdf
«SELL IT TO ME CHEAP»
The investor always wants to reduce the risk of his investment decisions;
In our case, he asks to open the know-how to his experts and make decision afterwards.
Alternatively, take 80–90% of the project “for risk.”
We cannot do this because we protect the interests of our current investors from substandard counterfeits, in the case of drowning technology; Also, we are confident that the ARNA technology will allow us to create many more test systems for different types of cancers, we have made good progress in several areas (ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, colon), but it was decided to concentrate on proving and bringing to market our 1st specific for breast cancer test.
BLOCKCHAIN
In 2017 blockchain came to the rescue. It would solve 2 main “pain” of the project: the introduction of technology on the market, without 100% of its disclosure (let’s call this the BlackBox approach) and distrust of the statistics. We believe this technology will help many other scientific teams in the world whose solutions are waiting for billions of people. We formulated the concept of the eco-system of the future, built on the principles of full transparency, opensource and trust, where the main beneficiary is an individual — a person. We called the software solution ARNA Panacea, even though in the pharmaceutical industry the word “Panacea” is somehow “toxic”, we chose it, since the blockchain and smartcontacts could become a real Panacea and solve a large number of healthcare problems.
ASSOCIATION
We are perfectly aware that we will not build the whole system on our own: today we are building an association with colleagues and enthusiasts around the globe. We gather around projects that will join us in creating Panacea. We agree on the standards of integration of different parts of the system, aimed at solving various niche tasks. At the same time, each part is a block in the construction of an eco-system. We defined the concept of Proof-of-Research Protocol.
APPROACH TO LAUNCH ARNA PANACEA
We found a very elegant way of launching such a system: by our own example we will show the global market how our ARNA BC test works. Simultaneously with carrying out all official and classical procedures — clinical studies, we launch our 1st test in retail: a legal design has been found, in which we position ourselves as “Wellness Test”.
Until the official registration of the test, as a medical device, the test cannot be prescribed by doctors or be used officially, however, as a general consultation, the test can be done. As a test “for predisposition to breast cancer,” on the basis of which Angelina Jolie decided to undergo surgery, or as the well-known in America case 23andme, or Atlas in Russia, or Genotec (it’s easy to google all of them). There are many examples around the world. In the US market, even diet advisory services are for the analysis of a drop of blood.
Thus, we launch the ARNA BC test as a wellness test at the 1st stage of the life of this product, in parallel — we launch the first release of the ARNA Panacea system in production.
We will write the impersonal test results in the blockchain.
To begin with, we will conduct an experiment for one of the top-ranking leaders in the topic of early diagnosis of breast cancer by liquid biopsy — let’s call it a “blinded experiment”. At the moment our great Guru decided to remain incognito for the general public, however, after carrying out such an experiment, he agrees to associate himself with the company formally, we plan to do it in April 2018.
Next — we will invite women to do tests, each of them will have their own private office in our blockchain eco-system. We will reward women for their entries in their private office once a quarter, so in 1 year the world will see very significant statistics collected on the basis of the data of the women themselves.
Thus, we will launch a system for validating our technology through the blockchain.
When other women will see that there is an accurate, cheap and fast test on the market that can catch the earliest stages of breast cancer, they will want to do this test.
For individuals, doctors will come (the next personal cabinet will be developed for them) and then clinics. Insurance companies will come next.
The system will start to grow in another plane: after seeing how the test for detection of breast cancer was validated, new biotech startups will arrive, followed by new patients.
Each new product will develop the ARNA Panacea system, regardless of whether the verification of the new product has been successful or it has failed.
Today I introduced myself to you, dear friends, and introduced to you the idea of synergy of blockchain and biotechnology, which will allow to quickly bring innovative solutions to the market and expose non-working technologies.
PS
We sincerely respect all the companies mentioned in this text, we invite them to participate in the recording of impersonal data in the ARNA panacea blockchain!
Website: https://arnagenomics.com
Telegram: https://t.me/arnagenomics
