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Background

Metastasis is a leading cause of death in cancer patients.  In this process, cells shed by a primary tumor, known as circulating tumor cells, enter the circulatory and lymph systems and spread to different organs where they can initiate the growth of new tumors.  An accurate quantification of these cells would provide invaluable information regarding the staging and prognosis of a patient's cancer, as well as helping to determine the most appropriate treatment options.  However, such cells are extremely rare and very diffcult to detect using current techniques, hampering the potential of this approach.  Furthermore, current techniques can suffer from either high false positive or false negatie rates, depending on the assay used.

Technology Description

Innovative investigators at the University of California, San Francisco have developed a novel diagnostic tool that allows circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and cancer stem cells (CSCs) to be accurately quantified in whole blood samples from patients.  This new technique accurately reports the number of CTCs an CSCs via a high throughput assay which combines state-of-the--art bioengineering technology with a highly sensitive genetics-cased approach.  Indeed, this technique has the capacity to significantly reduce the screening time necessary with millions of cells being evaluated within only a short time-frame.

Based on the techniques, it may be possible to gain new insights into the genetic basis for the evaluation of cancers and their metastasis, as well as provide new information into the effectiveness of cancer treatments.  Importantly, this apporach could also help to identify novel therapeutic targets.

Applications

• Cancer

Advantages

• Highly sensitive diagnostic tool
• Assessment of cancer staging
• Evaluation of effectiveness of current treatment
• Identifcation of new therapeutic targets

Patent Status

Patent Pending

Other Information

Contact

David C. Fung / david.fung@ucsf.edu / tel: View Phone Number. Please reference Tech ID #21894.

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