Developing minimally invasive diagnostic and relapse detection assays for pediatric cancers
Liquid biopsies are a new technology that allow us to detect small fragments of tumor material in the blood of people with cancer. Using this technology, we are improving our understanding of which patients need more therapy and which patients can be cured with less treatment. However, we believe that these liquid biopsy techniques can also be used to address other unmet needs in pediatric cancers. In this proposal, we plan to develop a minimally invasive blood-based cancer diagnostic assay and a highly sensitive approach for early detection of disease relapse for patients who have already undergone therapy.
Project Goals
In the first part of our project, we will test whether detection of cancer-specific DNA modifications will allow us to identify the presence of the six of the most common cancers in young people from a simple blood sample. We believe such a minimally invasive blood diagnostic test will allow us to diagnose cancers faster and more accurately, impacting children in North America and around the globe.
In the second part of our project, we will develop an approach that uses genomic information from a patient’s tumor sample to develop a patient-specific liquid biopsy assay for early detection of cancer recurrence. Our goal is to build a highly sensitive test that can find even the smallest traces of cancer DNA, before symptoms of recurrent tumors develop. Similar blood tests already exist for cancer types that occur in older adults. Our approach will be optimally designed for detection of recurrent childhood cancers. By catching relapses earlier, we will be able to start treatment sooner, when it is more likely to work. We believe that early intervention could turn fatal relapses into manageable long-term conditions.
