Sheila Habib, David Hill Join bioAffinity’s Scientific and Medical Advisory Board

bioAffinity Technologies Inc. has expanded its Scientific and Medical Advisory Board by two, adding Sheila Habib, M.D., and David Hill, M.D., to the governing body.

“Dr. Habib and Dr. Hill join other members of our Scientific and Medical Advisory Board who provide independent expert advice and counsel on the company’s research and development of cancer diagnostics, including CyPath Lung, a non-invasive test for the early detection of lung cancer,” bioAffinity President/CEO Maria Zannes said. “The caliber of the physicians and researchers who accepted our invitation to join our Scientific and Medical Advisory Board will accelerate the work of our own scientists to bring breakthrough technology to the early diagnosis of cancer.”

Habib is director of the Pulmonary Lung Nodule Clinic and the Lung Cancer Screening Program at the South Texas Veterans Health Care Systems’ Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital. She is also an assistant professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio who specializes in pulmonary nodule management and lung cancer. 
 
“Studies show lung and bronchus cancers represent 20% of all cancers among our veteran population,” Habib said. “We also know that lung cancer is difficult to detect in its early stages and by the time our patients are symptomatic, treatment options are not as effective. A non-invasive, highly accurate and relatively low-cost assay like CyPath can change the paradigm for the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer not just for veterans but for all patients.”

Hill is a National Board Member of the American Lung Association and assistant clinical professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. In addition, he is director of clinical research at Waterbury Pulmonary Associates
 
“bioAffinity’s test using fluorescence technology is a unique approach which can lead to earlier lung cancer diagnosis with better outcomes, while avoiding the morbidity and mortality of invasively evaluating non-cancerous lesions,” said Hill. “The goal of screening is to identify lung cancers early when treatment can be curative, but most lung cancers are currently identified at a late stage when they become symptomatic and the prognosis of this disease is extremely poor. Currently, low-dose CT scans are indicated for lung cancer screening in a select group of patients with heavy smoking histories. Unfortunately, these CT scans have a relatively high false-positive rate with small nodules of uncertain etiology and behavior being identified.”
 
CyPath Lung is a non-invasive test that has shown 92% sensitivity and 87% specificity in detecting early-stage lung cancer in individuals at high risk for the disease who have lung nodules less than 20mm. The test is intended for use by physicians for patients who display a pulmonary nodule requiring follow-up.

“Dr. Hill and Dr. Habib will join other recognized leaders who are deeply involved in screening and early diagnosis when treatment options offer the best potential outcome,” bioAffinity Chief Science and Medical Officer/Executive Vice President Vivienne Rebel, M.D., Ph.D., said. “We believe their groundbreaking work complements our mission to provide innovative products that have the potential to save thousands of lives every year.”
 
Other Science and Medical Advisory Board members include Neil Alexis, Ph.D., Catherine Sears, M.D., and Gerard Silvestri, M.D.
 
Alexis is principal investigator at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma and Lung Biology. He focuses on the use of sputum as a primary sampling tool for measuring cellular, biochemical and genetic outcomes in the human airway, and is a leading expert in the use of flow cytometry in the analysis of sputum.
 
Sears is an assistant professor of Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine. She is a physician scientist whose laboratory focuses on the impact of DNA damage and repair on the development of smoking-related lung cancers and on treatment response. Sears co-chairs the pulmonary oncology and lung cancer screening programs at the Indianapolis VA Medical Center and her clinical and research interests focus on improving lung cancer screening and early lung cancer detection and treatment.
 
Silvestri is professor of Medicine and a lung cancer pulmonologist at the Medical University of South Carolina. He specializes in the evaluation, management and improvement of outcomes in lung cancer patients, and has experience in evaluating new technologies for diagnosing and staging lung cancer. Silvestri’s research includes screening for lung cancer, how patients should be diagnosed and staged with the disease, and how to evaluate new technologies needed to diagnose and treat these patients.
 
bioAffinity Technologies Inc.addresses the need for noninvasive diagnosis of early-stage cancer, lung diseases, and targeted cancer treatment. OncoSelect Therapeutics LLC, a subsidiary of bioAffinity Technologies, is advancing its discoveries shown in-vitro to kill cancer cells without harm to normal cells. Research and optimization of the company’s platform technologies are conducted in its laboratories at The University of Texas at San Antonio.