The promise of this approach wasapparent in the mid eighties but was never advanced because it was simply tooearly. I participated in a startup at thetime trying to make it all happen. Nomatter, we now are on the way to having a pin prick blood test able to discernprostate cancer.
Right behind that we should beable to produce similar tests for each and every cancer type. Perhaps in the end we will end up with a handheld testing device which is able to read out the results then and there. Dr McCoy would be pleased.
Once this falls into place, acheck up at proscribed times should allow all cancers to be tackled very earlyin their careers when they can be readily cured. Discovery through secondary effects hasproven to be mostly too little and too late.
All told, this is good news forthe war on cnacer.
Biomarker research could lead to finger-prick cancer test
17:11 March 28, 2011
Biomarker research could lead to finger-prick cancer test (Photo: AlishaV viaFlickr)
A new interdisciplinary breakthrough could see cancer being diagnosedthrough a quick finger-prick test. After five years of research, the team ofbiologists, clinical oncologists, pathologists and information scientists from ETH Zurich, UniversityHospital Zurich and the Cantonal Hospital of St. Gallen have determined abiomarker for prostate cancer – a particular pattern of proteins in theblood that indicate the presence of cancerous disease.
A common precursor to prostate cancer in both mice and men is theinactivation of the "Pten" gene, which can lead to uncontrolled cellgrowth. Thus mouse models were used in the hope that subsequent steps would becommon between species. The researchers began by examining prostate surfaceproteins and comparing protein sets in both healthy and cancerous mice that haddeveloped the disease following Pten inactivation. From this they determined apattern of proteins that is typical of the mutated version of Pten and thusalso for prostate cancer.
Examining tissues and serum samples from human prostate cancersufferers and a control group, and using the list of specific proteins drawn upusing the mouse model, the scientists were able to identify 39 correspondingproteins in humans that indicated the presence of cancer. The informationscientists then calculated the four most reliable proteins as cancer indicatorsusing 20,000 models.
"We then used this biomarker pattern to examine a cohort ofpatients whose blood had never previously been analyzed," says WilhelmKrek, professor of Cell Biology at ETH Zurich
It is presumed that the onset of cancer is often triggered by amutation, such as the deactivation of a gene, which can lead to a change in theprotein pattern of the affected organ. Separating off surface proteins of certaintissues allows 20 percent of these protein patterns to be detected in theserum, allowing a reliable method of diagnosis.
Currently, cancer is diagnosed by tumor antigens in the blood, butthese methods are often misleading and can involve expensive and painfulbiopsies.
The identification of a reliable biomarker that indicates cancer hasbeen the subject of advanced studies by scientists for many years, but oftenother factors were found to skew the results. "The protein patterns thatwere determined may have reflected the patients' eating habits, but were unableto provide any indication about whether or not a cancerous disease waspresent," explains Krek. By contrast, the biomarker pattern method isextremely precise, and even conveys information about the type of tumor whichhelps to identify the best therapy to combat it. Other cancer
The biomarker signature needs to be validated in further clinicaltrials, and the ETH Zurich
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