Automated sampling of cell-free DNA from blood using engineered hydrogel-filled nanopores: Improving diagnostic/prognostic tests for prostate cancer

Current tests for the diagnosis, prognosis and stratification of prostate cancer suffer from two main drawbacks, being either invasive (requiring biopsies) or inaccurate and therefore unreliable. To reduce the current overtreatment with associated morbidity, it is imperative to distinguish men who will benefit from aggressive treatment from those who won’t and those who don’t require it. Circulating cell-free nucleic acids (cfNAs) recently emerged as clinically useful and minimally invasive diagnostic tools for cancer. Surprisingly, there is currently no cancer diagnostic blood test based on cfNA detection. This is largely due to the lack of standardised protocols for extracting, processing and quantifying cfNAs, which has also resulted in major inconsistencies in the recent literature. As part of this project a new technology will be developed based on hydrogel-filled nanopores engineered in-house to enables isolation and size sorting of cfNAs directly from human plasma. Separation of DNA populations will proceed via size exclusion by tailoring the hydrogel’s mesh size (and chemical properties). Isolated DNA fragments from one specific population will then be released from the pipette and analysed using gold-standard genomic techniques (e.g. targeted next generation sequencing). Such technology will help improve the detection of rare clones in plasma DNA purified by size across the disease spectrum, improving our ability to track tumour genomic evolution.

Enquiries and initial applications can be made by email to Dr Sylvain Ladame ([Email Address Removed])