Latest News

Liquid biopsies of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have the potential to transform cancer management through non-invasive, real-time feedback on patient conditions. However, immunoaffinity-based liquid biopsies typically suffer from low throughput, relative complexity, and postprocessing limitations. Here, we addressed these issues simultaneously by decoupling and independently optimizing the nano-, micro-, and macro-scales of an enrichment device that is simple to fabricate and operate. Unlike other affinity-based devices, our scalable mesh approach enables optimum capture conditions at any flow rate. The device detected CTCs under experimental conditions and in the blood of cancer patients where it also allowed for postprocessing and, thus, identification of clinically relevant biomarkers such as HER2, but also has the potential to predict patient response to therapies such as immune checkpoint inhibition therapy in the future. This suggests that our approach can overcome major limitations associated with affinity-based liquid biopsies and help improve cancer management.

Read the paper hereLink opens in a new window.