Liquid Biopsies

A test done on a sample of blood to look for cancer cells from a tumor that are circulating in the blood or for pieces of DNA from tumor cells that are in the blood. A liquid biopsy may be used to help find cancer at an early stage. It may also be used to help plan treatment or to find out how well treatment is working or if cancer has come back. Being able to take multiple samples of blood over time may also help doctors understand what kind of molecular changes are taking place in a tumor.

Certain fragments of DNA shed by tumours into the bloodstream can potentially be used to non-invasively screen for early-stage cancers, monitor responses to treatment and help explain why some cancers are resistant to therapies. For most tumours, a tissue biopsy is quite challenging in that it is costly, painful, or potentially risky for the patient. The development of non-invasive methods to detect and monitor tumours continues to be a major challenge in oncology. Cell-free circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) and circulating tumour cells (CTCs) are plasma sources of tumour DNA that have been investigated for non-invasive detection and monitoring of patient tumours but have not been analysed or directly compared across multiple tumour types. State of the art instrumentation platforms will be employed to aid detection and diagnosis.

Tissue and DNA Microarrays in Oncology


DNA microarrays will be employed to confirm various cancer types. Both pre-made and custom DNA arrays capabilities will be set up.