March 29, 2024

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Researchers use acoustics to boost … – Information Centre – Research & Innovation

Armed with a novel biosensor that takes advantage of acoustic waves to detect tumour DNA, an EU-funded task could raise the precision and affordability of most cancers diagnosis and help make personalised therapy a actuality for more people.


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© Giovanni Cancemi #292099202 supply:stock.adobe.com 2020

Cancer is the 2nd most popular cause of dying around the globe. There were being 9.six million most cancers-associated deaths in 2018 – amounting to a person in six deaths – and this selection is predicted to increase by 70 % over the upcoming two a long time.

When it comes to most cancers diagnosis and checking, a non-invasive method known as liquid biopsy has the prospective to outperform common strategies this sort of as sound-tissue biopsies, ultrasound scans and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). With a easy blood check, liquid biopsies establish DNA unveiled from most cancers cells to reveal a large range of facts about the tumour. However, the technique is not often applied for diagnosis for the reason that it stays laborious, inefficient and somewhat pricey.

Enter the EU-funded Capture-U-DNA task. The researchers associated have devised a new liquid biopsy method, which could pave the way to more correct diagnosis and lessen the have to have for invasive sound-tissue biopsies.

The novel and extremely-sensitive engineering system could also be applied to keep track of people more reliably and cost”effectively, thus paving the way towards more personalised therapy.

‘We’ve focused on detecting of the BRAF-V600E stage mutation, which is presented in several most cancers forms and has superior medical significance for personalised treatment,’ says task coordinator Electra Gizeli of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at FORTH in Greece.

‘Our strategy correctly and reliably detects a single molecule of genomic DNA carrying this mutation in ten 000 usual DNA molecules – all in about two hours from sample to consequence.’

Sounding out a new method

At present, blood serum collected in a liquid biopsy need to endure polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in get to amplify exceptional, small fragments of tumour DNA (ctDNA) to the stage at which they can be detected.

The Capture-U-DNA system identifies ctDNA making use of the hugely sensitive allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (AS-PCR) assay, which only amplifies fragments of DNA that have the target mutation.

Scientists combined this assay with their new acoustic wave biosensor, made to detect small amounts of ctDNA and able to analyse many samples through each and every operate. The amplified ctDNA is immobilised on the biosensor, primary to the subsequent binding of liposomes (applied to carry medication or other substances into human body tissues) on the device’s floor. It is this celebration that alters the acoustic sign and announces the detection of target DNA.

This system of sensing target DNA – which avoids the have to have for pricey optical parts applied for common detection making use of fluorescence – is the central innovation of the Capture-U-DNA task.

Proving the principle

‘We’re currently in the procedure of validating the engineering making use of tissue and plasma samples from melanoma, colorectal and lung most cancers people obtained by our medical associate, the College of Crete,’ says Gizeli.

‘Results so much are really promising. In the coming months, we’ll total our validation reports of detecting ctDNA from patients’ samples and in just the context of liquid biopsy.’

As the developer of the new acoustic system and sensor array, AWSensors in Spain has ideas to commercialise the engineering for additional laboratory investigate, as very well as for use in the medical discipline.

The task comes beneath the FET Open up Horizon 2020 programme which supports early-phase science and engineering investigate into radically new future technologies.