Nicolo Manaresi, Ph.D. Chief Scientific Officer of M Silicon Biosystems gives an overview of Two Studies Presented at AACR 20 Meeting Deepen Understanding Of Cancer Mechanisms
“The products and workflow described in this video are for research use only. Not for use in diagnostics procedures.”
BOLOGNA, Italy and HUNTINGDON VALLEY, Pa., Aug. 4, 2020 / PRNewswire/ — The pioneer of liquid biopsy technology, Menarini Silicon Biosystems, today revealed two new studies documenting genetic changes in circulating cancer cells that could enhance cancer prognosis and help guide treatment. Ses studies were presented as posters at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting II June 22-24. To collect and separate the circulating tumor cells for study, Menarini’s CELLSEARCH ® and DEPArrayTM NxT technologies were used. In one study, Massimo Cristofanilli, M.D., F.A.C.P., Associate Director of Translational Research at the Northwestern University’s Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center, and colleagues obtained blood samples from 239 patients with stage III / IV breast cancer, then isolated and selected over 200 individual tumor cells from HER2 + patients *. Then, the scientists sequenced each of those cells’ genetic codes.
Previously, Dr. Cristofanilli had shown that one particular genetic alteration was associated with more aggressive metastatic cancer and a worse prognosis in circulating tumor cells, the overexpression of a gene called HER2,. Additional genetic modifications that occur more commonly in metastatic breast cancer cells were revealed in the new study, the most significant being a genetic variation called the mutation of PTPN1.
The new results are exciting because, said Dr. Cristofanilli, they enhance our understanding of the processes underlying the essential phase of cancer metastasis. In order to enhance the treatment of this deadly disease, the genetic changes we identified may also contribute to the development of drugs that directly target mutations.
In the second study, scientists led by Claudio Forcato, Ph.D., head of the Menarini Silicon Biosystems Bioinformatics Unit, collected, isolated, and sequenced circulating cancer cells from three multiple myeloma patients *. They then looked for a genetic anomaly called heterozygosity loss (LoH), in which one of the two alleles that are typically present in the genetic code at a particular location is missing. They found that all of the multiple myeloma patients had these LoH events in cancer cells. “Our findings indicate that loss of heterozygosity may be pervasive in multiple myeloma, and may provide the disease with a prognostic and predictive biomarker,” Dr. Forcato stated.
Fabio Piazzalunga, President and CEO of Menarini Silicon Biosystems, Inc., said these two new studies demonstrate how our technologies are advancing the understanding of cancers such as metastatic breast cancer and multiple myeloma and may contribute to better, more personalized care options for patients with these diseases.
The first and only scientifically validated blood test cleared by the U.S. is CELLSEARCH * *. Food & Drug Administration ( FDA) to identify and count CTCs to assist doctors in the treatment of patients with metastatic breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers when used in combination with other clinical monitoring methods. The test is also approved for use in monitoring patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC), by the China Food & Drug Administration. With studies published in more than 650 peer-reviewed journals, the CELLSEARCH Method is the most widely studied CTC technology.
DEPArray NxT is an image-based, automated cell-sorting and isolation tool that enables clinical researchers to perform molecular analysis with single-cell precision on live or fixed cells.