Difference between revisions of "Team:ETH Zurich/Applications"
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| − | Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have a huge potential influence | + | Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have a huge potential influence on the treatment and prognisis for patients with cancer. However, the only tool available on the market, CellSearch, shows significant variability in the results while tested on positive samples. This fact prevents its clinical implementation for routine CTC detection. Also, CellSearch is primarily based on the detection of epithelial markers. However, when cancer cells undergo the epithelial-mesenchymal transition at the initiation of metastasis, these markers disappear from the CTCs surface. Therefore, metastatic CTC become undetectable using this technique.</p> |
| − | Hence, our goal is to develop a cheap and sensitive assay for CTC detection, that | + | <p>Hence, our goal is to develop a cheap and sensitive assay for CTC detection, that does not depend on these markers. We base our system on the detection of two makrers specific to cancer cells. The combination of two signals is necessary to make this test more specific, despite its capaciy to detect cancer cells of various origins. We believe that increased lactate production is a differentiating feature of cancer cells compared to normal cells (Warburg effect). A teh second signal we chose the sensitivity to sTRAIL-induced apoptosis as a second signal.</p> |
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| + | <h3>Application and Clinical setup</h3> | ||
| + | <p>Regarding the positioning of our system in the chain of cancer treatment and diagnosis, we see our test as a new standart routine test which is applied regularly upon diagnosis of localized cancer to anticipate occurence of metastasis, or upon successful treatment of initial cancer. We find the latter of these options to be very important, since currently the danger of remission is very high and its detection is only possible 3 to 4 years after the initial cure, at a time when it is often too late. This is due to the fact that imagoing techniques such as CT scans can only detect metastasis when the upcoming tumor is already of considerable size. <b class="TODO">ref</b> Detection of metastasis in early stages, meaning the time when CTC are present in the blood of patients, will bring a lot of advantages and opportunities for effective and comparably light treatements.</p> | ||
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| + | <p>Our system is designed for use in any kind of laboratory which has access to the necessary equipment, which we are trying to keep on a low level. A blood sample will be retrieved from patients, cleared of red blood cells, and incubated with sTRAIL. In a second step, the sample will be introduced into a microfluidics chip, where our MicroBeacon bacteria will detect apoptotic, lactate producing cancer cells (see our <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:ETH_Zurich/Design#system_overview_pic">System Overview</a> for more details). As a next step, we are planning to establish a system to exract the positive cells from the chip and analyse them more closely to decide on further treatment protocols.</p> | ||
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Revision as of 14:55, 14 September 2015
- Project
- Modeling
- Lab
- Human
Practices - Parts
- About Us
Applications
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have a huge potential influence on the treatment and prognisis for patients with cancer. However, the only tool available on the market, CellSearch, shows significant variability in the results while tested on positive samples. This fact prevents its clinical implementation for routine CTC detection. Also, CellSearch is primarily based on the detection of epithelial markers. However, when cancer cells undergo the epithelial-mesenchymal transition at the initiation of metastasis, these markers disappear from the CTCs surface. Therefore, metastatic CTC become undetectable using this technique.
Hence, our goal is to develop a cheap and sensitive assay for CTC detection, that does not depend on these markers. We base our system on the detection of two makrers specific to cancer cells. The combination of two signals is necessary to make this test more specific, despite its capaciy to detect cancer cells of various origins. We believe that increased lactate production is a differentiating feature of cancer cells compared to normal cells (Warburg effect). A teh second signal we chose the sensitivity to sTRAIL-induced apoptosis as a second signal.
Application and Clinical setup
Regarding the positioning of our system in the chain of cancer treatment and diagnosis, we see our test as a new standart routine test which is applied regularly upon diagnosis of localized cancer to anticipate occurence of metastasis, or upon successful treatment of initial cancer. We find the latter of these options to be very important, since currently the danger of remission is very high and its detection is only possible 3 to 4 years after the initial cure, at a time when it is often too late. This is due to the fact that imagoing techniques such as CT scans can only detect metastasis when the upcoming tumor is already of considerable size. ref Detection of metastasis in early stages, meaning the time when CTC are present in the blood of patients, will bring a lot of advantages and opportunities for effective and comparably light treatements.
Our system is designed for use in any kind of laboratory which has access to the necessary equipment, which we are trying to keep on a low level. A blood sample will be retrieved from patients, cleared of red blood cells, and incubated with sTRAIL. In a second step, the sample will be introduced into a microfluidics chip, where our MicroBeacon bacteria will detect apoptotic, lactate producing cancer cells (see our System Overview for more details). As a next step, we are planning to establish a system to exract the positive cells from the chip and analyse them more closely to decide on further treatment protocols.
We would like to thank our sponsors
