Anna Sipos
Oncompass Medicine Hungary Ltd., Hungary
Title: Development of the unique diagnostic platform for HER2-positive breast cancer patient
Biography
Biography: Anna Sipos
Abstract
Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer among women and responsible for approximately 15% of all their cancer deaths. Approximately 20% of patients with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer can benefit t from Herceptin (trastuzumab) therapy which was approved by FDA in 2006. Therefore, an early diagnosis of biomarkers is a critical factor in breast cancer therapy. The Oncompass Medicine Hungary Ltd., as a member of the ADMONT – “Advanced distributed Pilot Line for More-than-Moore Technologies” project aimed to develop a novel diagnostic platform for detection of HER2-positive circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood next to the patient’s bed. The platform design based on the lab-on-chip solution is supported by MtM (More-than-Moore) technology. LED-based photodetectors observes the colorimetric response of CTCs with different level of HER2 expression. Commercially available CTC isolation method was optimized to improve CTC yield from blood-based cellular model system and patient derived material. An alkaline phosphatase-based (AP) detection system was set on blood-based cellular breast cancer model system to assess the sensitivity of the detector arrays and meet the characteristics of the prototype device. Our developments introduce a unique integrated diagnostic system that is faster, cost-effective and requires less number of cells or sample material than conventional techniques such as flow cytometry (FACS), fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and immunohistochemistry (IHC). As a novel molecular diagnostic system for personalized medicine, it enables detection of HER2-expression to select patients for cancer therapy and also screening of therapy response, based on a less-invasive and easily repeatable sampling. The research leading to these results has received funding from NEMZ_15-1-2016-0002 project.