By Diagnostics World Staff
September 16, 2015 | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Illumina this morning
announced a collaboration to conduct research studies that are critical to
understanding the biology of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). The studies aim to
inform the development of new strategies to diagnose and monitor cancer and to
help establish ctDNA as an important marker in the study and eventual treatment
of cancer.
Traditional biopsies for acquiring tumor
DNA are sometimes impossible or difficult, but dying tumor cells release small
pieces of their DNA into the bloodstream. These pieces are called cell-free
circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and
can be detected in a blood sample via DNA sequencing.
MSK and Illumina plan
to conduct research trials designed to answer biological and clinical questions
about ctDNA in multiple cancer types. MSK will collect samples, and Illumina
will apply its best-in-class sequencing technology to detect ctDNA in those
samples. The program will work to validate a ctDNA assay to demonstrate
correlation between ctDNA signal and cancer burden.
“The possibility of
reducing the number of invasive and expensive diagnostic and monitoring
procedures with a simple blood draw is a game-changer for cancer patients and
for oncology,” said Jose Baselga, MD, PhD, Physician-in-Chief and Chief Medical
Officer at MSK in a statement.
“This relationship
between Illumina and MSK will create important data regarding the value, the
significance and the potential applications of measuring ctDNA via deep
sequencing,” said Dr. Rick Klausner, SVP and Chief Medical Officer of Illumina
in the same statement. “Is ctDNA not simply equivalent to, but superior to
current methods of cancer diagnosis and monitoring? Can we replace expensive
and invasive monitoring with a blood test? Does ctDNA reflect the total burden
of cancer clones, and is it equivalent to or better than biopsies at predicting
outcome and therapeutic response? These are the types of questions we will work
towards answering.”