This Is Only A Test – Details, episodes & analysis

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This Is Only A Test

Halteres Associates

Science

Frequency: 1 episode/0d. Total Eps: 33

A video series covering the interesting stories in the history of diagnostics, disease, health technology, medtech charlatans, and more. Hosted by Mickey Urdea, presented by Halteres Associates.

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Data updated on 04/07/2026

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https://innovations.bmj.com/content/7/1/11
2 shares
http://www.rapid-diagnostics.com/
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https://youtu.be/6Kf6imexz_Q
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Score global : 48%

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Ep. 28: “How To Proceed With Proteomics!”

Season 1 · Episode 28

Wednesday, February 26, 2025 • Duration 48:17

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!”

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Ep. 27: "Oh Give Me A Home In The Microbiome!"

Season 1 · Episode 27

Wednesday, February 26, 2025 • Duration 19:29

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.

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Ep. 26: "Making Space For Spatial Biology!"

Season 1 · Episode 26

Wednesday, February 26, 2025 • Duration 20:20

Spatial biology is a new frontier in molecular biology, but so far as we can tell it has not as of yet been explained all that well, so Mickey Urdea is stepping in to answer some questions about this complex study of tissues within their own 2D- and 3D-contexts, and the technologies being utilized to provide insight toward new strategies to prevent and treat disease, in “Making Space For Spatial Biology!”

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Ep. 25 (Part Three) - "Getting Hip To Hepatitis!"

Season 1 · Episode 25

Wednesday, February 26, 2025 • Duration 21:51

In the third and final installment of "Getting Hip To Hepatitis!", Mickey Urdea is recounting the progress that was made, in the immediate aftermath of its discovery, to know more about the Hepatitis C virus, how to measure it, and how to treat it. Armed with alpha interferon, viral load, and some help from Japan, Mickey will walk you through how Hepatitis C went from discovery to treatment, and perhaps someday soon, to a vaccine cure. Tune in for the last word on "Getting Hip To Hepatitis!"

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Ep. 25 (Part Two): "Getting Hip to Hepatitis!"

Season 1 · Episode 25

Wednesday, February 26, 2025 • Duration 19:58

In Part Two, Mickey Urdea is picking up where he left off with the discovery of Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis, moving forward to the work that was done for developing accurate RNA tests for Hepatitis C, what genotypes and subtypes were uncovered, how the universally agreed-upon nomenclature and labeling of those subtypes were solidified by him and his team at Chiron, and how surprisingly important genotyping became for appropriate treatment of HCV infection.

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Ep. 25 (Part One): "Getting Hip to Hepatitis!"

Season 1 · Episode 25

Wednesday, February 26, 2025 • Duration 16:20

“Getting Hip To Hepatitis!” Part One - On the first part of this two-part series, Mickey Urdea is sharing his perspective on the discovery of Hepatitis C Virus, and the subsequent impact on global health! Part One covers the earliest work on "Non-A Non-B" Hepatitis at Chiron Corporation up to the first approved blood screening test for the newly discovered pathogen, and Part Two will continue on with what happened after that Nobel Prize-winning discovery. Get hip and see all there is to "C" about Non-A Non-B Hepatitis.

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Ep. 24: “Catching Up On Malaria!”

Season 1 · Episode 24

Wednesday, February 26, 2025 • Duration 24:51

On Episode 24 of Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics, Mickey Urdea is buzzing about malaria! Earth's leading mosquito-borne disease affects 247 million people worldwide every year, with about 619,000 deaths. On this episode, Mickey guides you through the massive scope of this parasitic infection, the historic obstacles and solutions for proper diagnosis, the many Nobel prizes that have been awarded for combating this disease, and what problems are yet to solved. Put on your mosquito net, and protect yourself against malaria!

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Ep. 23: "Why Diagnostics Companies Fail: Successes, Failures, and Zombies!"

Season 1 · Episode 23

Wednesday, February 26, 2025 • Duration 45:52

On Episode 23 of "Interesting Stories in the History of Diagnostics", Mickey is resurrecting the idea of the "zombie life science company" to elucidate just why diagnostics companies fail. Some life science companies with a great idea turn out to be successes, some end up as failures, and some make a critical error somewhere along the way and are dead before they even know it yet - hence, a zombie! Mickey and the Halteres team performed extensive research as to how life science companies can avoid the pitfalls of others who came before them, and in this episode he's breaking down that learning in the engaging way that only he can. Don't be afraid to fail (or afraid of zombies!), and please enjoy this episode.

If you'd like to watch Mickey's full coverage on the subject, here's his PowerPoint presentation at SelectBio's Boston Conference in March of 2022: https://youtu.be/6Kf6imexz_Q

And if you'd like to read the full report from Halteres Associates on “"Postmortems on diagnostic testing start-ups: reports of commercial successes and failures and the case of the Zombie life science company", you can read that here: https://innovations.bmj.com/content/7/1/11

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Ep. 22: "Not Staying Mum About Mummies!”

Season 1 · Episode 22

Wednesday, February 26, 2025 • Duration 25:49

While we tend to associate mummies with Halloween, manmade and naturally occurring mummies are one of science’s greatest sources of the genetics of human history, and analyzing parasites and diseases within their preserved bodies can help unwrap (if you will) the layers of yet-untold stories of how mankind got where we are today. In this episode, Mickey is unsealing the entombed secrets of the Incan Ice Mummies, the smoked mummies of the Torres Strait Islands, what paleomicrobiology is, how the paint color “Mummy Brown” got its name, and King Tut's lingering ailments and likely cause of death – though he was not, as Steve Martin suggested, “born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia”.

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Ep. 21: “Getting Crispy About CRISPR!”

Season 1 · Episode 21

Wednesday, February 26, 2025 • Duration 20:12

On episode 21 of "Interesting Stories In The History Of Diagnostics", Mickey Urdea is asking: "Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?" That's no puzzle - it's a palindrome! Yes that's right, he's discussing CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, the hallmark trait of a bacterial defense system that forms the basis for CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology, which can be programmed to target specific stretches of genetic code and to edit DNA at precise locations, as well as for other purposes, such as for new diagnostic tools. This episode not only serves to detail the historical timeline of CRISPR technology (which is certainly interesting on its own), but to then illustrate how the technology actually works and where the field is going. So don't get burnt to a crisp, just get CRISPR!

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This Is Only A Test – Details, episodes & analysis

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This Is Only A Test – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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RSS feed quality and score

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Latest published episodes

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Youtube1