This Is Only A Test

On this episode of "This Is Only A Test", Mickey Urdea is covering Health Economics! Now, Health Economics might not sound like the most exciting topic, but it’s perhaps the most important one since it’s what allows some promising diagnostic technologies to succeed while others never reach widespread clinical use. Health economics can help developers understand not only whether a new test works, but whether it delivers enough clinical and economic value to earn reimbursement and become part of the standard of care. From mapping the patient journey to modeling cost-effectiveness, test performance, and payer impact, health economic analysis can help shape smarter diagnostic development from R&D through commercialization. Discover the Remarkable Importance of Health Economics on "This Is Only A Test"!

On this episode of "This Is Only A Test", we are proud to share Mickey Urdea's panel discussion from ⁠TriCon 2026⁠, "Experiences with Home Access to Testing: Where Are We?" featuring Elizabeth M. Marlowe, PhD, D(ABMM), Executive Scientific Director, Head, R&D, Infectious Diseases & Immunology at Quest Diagnostics; Michael J. Mina, MD, PhD, Chief Medical and Strategy Officer from Truvian; and Leslie Saltzman, DO, MBA, Vice President, Consumer Health Solutions at Labcorp.

But first, Mickey sets the stage with a short recap of DIY Testing versus DIY Sampling and Shipment, the slides of which can be viewed ⁠HERE⁠.

On Episode 6 of "This Is Only A Test," Mickey Urdea explores one of the most influential ideas in modern medicine: the clinical surrogate endpoint. While the ultimate goal of a therapy is to help patients live longer or healthier lives, waiting years for those outcomes can make developing new treatments painfully slow and expensive. Surrogate endpoints offer another path, providing measurable biological signals that can predict clinical benefit long before the final outcome is known.

Mickey traces the story back to his own personal experiences during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, where the ability to accurately measure viral load transformed the way antiviral drugs were developed and evaluated. He explains how advances in molecular diagnostics and branched DNA signal amplification made it possible to quantify HIV RNA with unprecedented sensitivity, ultimately helping establish viral load as one of medicine's first widely accepted surrogate endpoints. The result was shorter clinical trials, fewer patients required, and dramatically faster access to life-saving therapies.

But the story doesn't stop with HIV. From cancer and cardiovascular disease to metabolic disorders and advanced medical imaging, surrogate endpoints now play a critical role across medicine. Mickey explores how biomarkers, imaging technologies, and other measurable indicators are reshaping clinical research, while also examining the challenges of proving that a surrogate truly predicts meaningful patient outcomes.

​Tune in for a look at how measuring the right signal at the right time has transformed clinical trials and accelerated some of the most important medical breakthroughs of the past four decades on "Clinical Surrogate Endpoints!"

On Episode 5 of “This Is Only A Test,” Mickey Urdea takes on one of the most fundamental challenges in modern diagnostics: using the right tool for the job. As scientists gain deeper insight into the complexities of human biology - from the genome and transcriptome to proteins, metabolites, and entire cell populations - the technologies used to study them are evolving just as quickly. Choosing the correct technology at the right stage can mean the difference between a promising discovery and a successful clinical diagnostic.

In this episode, Mickey walks through the journey from biomarker discovery to validation and ultimately clinical diagnostics, exploring the platforms that power each step. Along the way, he compares the strengths and limitations of tools like NGS, advanced immunoassays, mass spectrometry, and spatial biology techniques. From massive sequencing projects and the Human Cell Atlas to multiplex protein assays and single-cell metabolomics, researchers are navigating an explosion of biological data while still uncovering how much we have yet to learn about human disease.

So before you pick up a pipette, make sure you’ve chosen the right tool. Join Mickey for a tour through the technologies shaping the future of biomarker science on “Using The Right Tool!”

On this episode of "This Is Only A Test", Mickey Urdea is banging his head against the issue of traumatic brain injuries, or TBI! Globally, 69 million people suffer traumatic brain injuries every year, yet there have been very few successful quantifiable diagnostics available aside from field tests for noticeable symptoms. Mickey goes deep into the known diagnosable symptoms of TBI, the FDA-approved tests in the field, and the latest research on acetylated tau proteins as a surrogate endpoint. Now strap your helmet on and brace for impact on "Getting Our Heads Around TBI!"

On the third episode of This Is Only A Test, Mickey Urdea is breaking the mold to talk to you about mold! Mycology, the study of the Kingdom of Fungi, might not get the spotlight as often as Animals or Plants (heck, maybe even less than some Protists) but the powerful Fungus plays a key cog in the cycle of life on Earth, especially in regard to their roles as decomposers (Wolfgang Amadeus Moldzart, anyone?) and as food fermenters. But don't break out the Roquefort just yet, as mold can also cause debilitating disease in humans, from the emerging fungus C. auris, which can cause severe multidrug-resistant illness in hospitalized patients, to ergotism, a poisoning predominantly caused by infected rye which can cause gangrenous symptoms (think a Pieter Bruegel painting) and delirious hallucinations that border on madness (think a Hieronymus Bosch painting); in fact, some hypothesize that ergot poisoning can explain away the Dancing Plague of 1518, and maybe even the Salem Witch Trials! Mickey covers it all, as well as the latest diagnostic technologies and methodologies which are helping to test and treat neglected mycological diseases. So douse your tempeh in soy sauce and grab a bottle of Chianti, it's time for "Learning To Live With The Fungus Among Us!"

On Episode 2 of "This Is Only A Test", Mickey Urdea is thrilled to be finally talking about APTAMERS! Aptamers are generally defined as oligomers of artificial ssDNA, RNA, or XNA which bind a specific target molecule or family or target molecules, and despite some Nobel Prize-winning work in the field, they have been underutilized for immunoassay development – until now! If Mickey has his way, you will walk away from this episode champing at the bit to get your hands on some aptamers. So please enjoy this overview of the development of the use of aptamers in immunoassays, the latest innovations and breakthroughs in those methodologies, and the determined companies working to harness those technologies. Get rapt to be apt at aptamers!

Click HERE for all the slides presented in this episode.

In the debut episode of "This Is Only A Test", Dr. Mickey Urdea is marching to his own rhythm - his own algorithm, that is! In order to help you understand how modern diagnostic technologies utilize mathematical algorithms, Mickey is covering the ABCs on AUC, scouring the rock bottom of ROC curves, and connecting the algebraic work of 7th century Persian polymath Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi to today's best practices for diagnostic testing. You don't have to rhumba to move to the rhythm of algorithms!

In this episode of Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics, Mickey Urdea is presenting this practical guide on the breadth and depth of the proteome! From an overview of the proteome itself to the techniques used to find subsets of proteins of interest that may correspond to a particular disease state, as well as the top technologies available and what separates them from the rest, this episode will serve as your guide for “How To Proceed With Proteomics!”

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Halteres Associates is serving up a new episode of Interesting Stories In The History of Diagnostics about the microbiome! As you munch on every bite of stuffing, remember that your body is made up of a community of commensal, symbiotic, and pathogenic microorganisms such as bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, and viruses, as well as protozoans and other protists, so you are actually giving a little taste of Thanksgiving dinner to every microbe who’s along for the ride. And as you recline on your sofa for a post-turkey nap, envision just how that tryptophan is being broken down by your whole microorganism pit crew.