PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

New diagnostic technology may lead to individualized treatments for prostate cancer

NanoVelcro chip device captures and isolates potentially high-risk cancer cells

2013-05-29
(Press-News.org) LOS ANGELES – A research team jointly led by scientists from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of California, Los Angeles, have enhanced a device they developed to identify and "grab" circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, that break away from cancers and enter the blood, often leading to the spread of cancer to other parts of the body.

If more studies confirm the technology's effectiveness, the NanoVelcro Chip device could enable doctors to access and identify cancerous cells in the bloodstream, which would provide the diagnostic information needed to create individually tailored treatments for patients with prostate cancer.

The researchers believe this technology may function as a "liquid biopsy," revolutionizing conventional biopsy practices and significantly advancing the field of personalized medicine. Today's biopsies require the removal of tissue samples through a needle inserted into a solid tumor, a procedure that is invasive and sometimes painful. Biopsies are extremely difficult in metastatic prostate cancer because the disease often spreads to bone, where the availability of the tissue is low.

The biggest challenges in the treatment of cancer are that every person's tumor differs greatly and often mutates over time, especially in response to treatment. Researchers hope that by analyzing these CTCs, doctors will be able to understand the tumor evolution in each individual. By monitoring the genetic changes in CTCs and their invasiveness in a tissue culture dish, doctors may be able to quickly adjust their treatment plans in response.

"We are optimistic that the use of our NanoVelcro CTC technology will revolutionize prostate cancer treatment. We know that cancers evolve over time and that every patient's cancer is a unique problem — the 'one-size-fits-all' approach is not going to allow us to cure prostate cancer or any other cancer," said Edwin M. Posadas, MD, medical director of the Urologic Oncology Program at Cedars-Sinai's Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute and senior author of the article in the March online issue of Advanced Materials.

"This evolution means that we need to be able to monitor these changes over time and to ensure a patient's treatment is individualized and optimized. The molecular characterizations of CTCs will provide real-time information allowing us to choose the right treatment for the right patient at the right time. This improvement will be a great step toward developing personalized medicine," he added.

The existence of CTCs and their role in cancer metastasis was first suspected more than 140 years ago, and the first test for the routine measurement of CTCs became available in 2004, but earlier methods have produced low capture efficiencies and limited capability of captured cells to be utilized for later molecular analysis.

"Our technology is the combination of three state-of-the-art technologies: the NanoVelcro CTC chip, laser capture microdissection and whole exome sequencing," said Yi-Tsung Lu, MD, a postdoctoral scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, and one of the article's first authors. "This advancement will, in principle, allow us to track the genomic evolution of prostate cancer after we initiate a therapy and will allow us to better understand the mechanism of drug resistance that is common in prostate cancer patients. We hope the comprehensive understanding of cancer biology at the individual level will ultimately lead to better therapy choice for patients suffering from advanced cancer."

With the new system, a patient's blood is pumped through the NanoVelcro Chip — the microvilli protruding from the cancer cells will stick to the nanofiber structures on the device's surface, much like Velcro. This phenomenon facilitates the capture of rare CTCs in the blood stream. Next, laser capture microdissection technology allows the scientists to selectively cut out and pick up the CTCs from the NanoVelcro Chip, virtually eliminating any trace of any contamination from white blood cells, which can complicate analysis. Finally, the isolated and purified CTCs are subjected to single cell "next-generation" sequencing, which reveals mutations in the genetic material of the cells and may help doctors personalize therapies to a patient's unique cancer.

"To date, CTC capture technologies have been able to do little more than count the number of CTCs, which is informative but not very useful from a treatment planning perspective. It is a scientific breakthrough to have the ability to isolate pure CTCs and maintain their integrity for sophisticated genomic and behavioral analyses," said Hsian-Rong Tseng, PhD, associate professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at UCLA and the inventor of the NanoVelcro Chip concept and device. His enthusiasm is echoed by Leland W. K. Chung, PhD, director of the Urologic Oncology Research Program at the Cedars-Sinai Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute.

###

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Science, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA and VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Beijing Genomics Institute in China, CytoLumina Technologies Corp. and Fourth Military Medical University in China contributed to the article.

Cedars-Sinai researchers were supported by a Young Investigator Award and a Challenge Award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation, research grants (P01 CA098912 and R01 CA122602) from the National Institutes of Health, a Department of Defense Idea Award (W81XWH-11-1-0422) and from Spielberg Family Foundation. UCLA researchers were supported by a Creativity Award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation and research grants (R21 CA151159 and R33 CA157396) from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute Innovative Molecular Analysis Technologies (IMAT) Program.

Citation: Advanced Materials, "High-Purity Prostate Circulating Tumor Cell Isolation by a Polymer Nanofiber-Embedded Microchip for Whole Exome Sequencing," March 2013 issue.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Scientists find possible solution to an ancient enigma

2013-05-29
The widespread disappearance of stromatolites, the earliest visible manifestation of life on Earth, may have been driven by single-celled organisms called foraminifera. The findings, by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the University of Connecticut; Harvard Medical School; and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, were published online the week of May 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Stromatolites ("layered rocks") are structures made of calcium carbonate and shaped by ...

Scientists develop CO2 sequestration technique

2013-05-29
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Lawrence Livermore scientists have discovered and demonstrated a new technique to remove and store atmospheric carbon dioxide while generating carbon-negative hydrogen and producing alkalinity, which can be used to offset ocean acidification. The team demonstrated, at a laboratory scale, a system that uses the acidity normally produced in saline water electrolysis to accelerate silicate mineral dissolution while producing hydrogen fuel and other gases. The resulting electrolyte solution was shown to be significantly elevated in hydroxide concentration ...

Picking up a second language is predicted by ability to learn patterns

2013-05-29
Some people seem to pick up a second language with relative ease, while others have a much more difficult time. Now, a new study suggests that learning to understand and read a second language may be driven, at least in part, by our ability to pick up on statistical regularities. The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Some research suggests that learning a second language draws on capacities that are language-specific, while other research suggests that it reflects a more general capacity for learning ...

Small molecule could have big impact on cancer

2013-05-29
Dr. Jung-Mo Ahn, associate professor of chemistry at The University of Texas at Dallas, has designed and synthesized a novel small molecule that might become a large weapon in the fight against prostate cancer. In a study published online May 28 in the journal Nature Communications, Ahn and his colleagues at UT Southwestern Medical Center describe the rational design of the molecule, as well as laboratory tests that show its effectiveness at blocking the cancer-promoting function of proteins called androgen receptors. Androgen receptors are found inside cells and have ...

GOJO presents electronic hand hygiene compliance study at APIC conference

2013-05-29
AKRON, Ohio, (May 28, 2013) – GOJO Industries, a leader in hand hygiene and skin health and inventors of PURELL® Hand Sanitizer, will present its scientific research study, "Impact of Electronic Monitoring and a Hand Hygiene Improvement Program on Compliance Rates" at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) Conference, June 8-10, 2013. Sarah Edmonds, M.S., senior clinical scientist at GOJO lead the study. The research was conducted on two units of an acute care facility in Fort Worth, Texas from June – October 2012 using GOJO SMARTLINKTM ...

Diamonds, nanotubes find common ground in graphene

2013-05-29
What may be the ultimate heat sink is only possible because of yet another astounding capability of graphene. The one-atom-thick form of carbon can act as a go-between that allows vertically aligned carbon nanotubes to grow on nearly anything. That includes diamonds. A diamond film/graphene/nanotube structure was one result of new research carried out by scientists at Rice University and the Honda Research Institute USA, reported today in Nature's online journal Scientific Reports. The heart of the research is the revelation that when graphene is used as a middleman, ...

Simple 'frailty' test predicts death, hospitalization for kidney dialysis patients

2013-05-29
Johns Hopkins scientists report that a 10-minute test for "frailty" first designed to predict whether the elderly can withstand surgery and other physical stress could be useful in assessing the increased risk of death and frequent hospitalization among kidney dialysis patients of any age. In a study described in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and published online yesterday, the Johns Hopkins investigators said dialysis patients deemed frail by the simple assessment were more than twice as likely to die within three years, and much more likely to be hospitalized ...

Disabled patients who can't afford their meds come to the ER more

2013-05-29
WASHINGTON — Disabled Medicare patients under the age of 65 who don't take their prescription medications because of cost concerns are more likely to have at least one emergency department visit during a one-year period. The results of a new study are published online today in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("The Relationship Between Emergency Department Use and Cost-Related Medication Nonadherence Among Medicare Beneficiaries"). "Poverty and disability increase the risk that patients don't take their medicine because of the cost, which can lead to avoidable hospitalizations," ...

Women donate less to charity than men in some contexts

2013-05-29
Given the chance, women are more likely than men to dodge an opportunity to donate to charity, a group of economists have found. The issue of which gender is more generous has been debated for years. A new field experiment conducted by scholars at the University of Chicago and University of California, Berkeley shows that when it's easy to avoid making a donation, such as not responding to a door-to-door solicitor, women are less likely than men to give. The results of the study are published in the article, "The Importance of Being Marginal: Gender Differences in Generosity," ...

Changing gut bacteria through diet affects brain function, UCLA study shows

2013-05-29
UCLA researchers now have the first evidence that bacteria ingested in food can affect brain function in humans. In an early proof-of-concept study of healthy women, they found that women who regularly consumed beneficial bacteria known as probiotics through yogurt showed altered brain function, both while in a resting state and in response to an emotion-recognition task. The study, conducted by scientists with UCLA's Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress and the Ahmanson–Lovelace Brain Mapping Center at UCLA, appears in the June edition ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

New strategies to enhance chiral optical signals unveiled

Cambridge research uncovers powerful virtual reality treatment for speech anxiety

2025 Gut Microbiota for Health World Summit to spotlight groundbreaking research

International survey finds that support for climate interventions is tied to being hopeful and worried about climate change

Cambridge scientist launches free VR platform that eliminates the fear of public speaking

Open-Source AI matches top proprietary model in solving tough medical cases

Good fences make good neighbors (with carnivores)

NRG Oncology trial supports radiotherapy alone following radical hysterectomy should remain the standard of care for early-stage, intermediate-risk cervical cancer

Introducing our new cohort of AGA Future Leaders

Sharks are dying at alarming rates, mostly due to fishing. Retention bans may help

Engineering excellence: Engineers with ONR ties elected to renowned scientific academy

New CRISPR-based diagnostic test detects pathogens in blood without amplification

Immunotherapy may boost KRAS-targeted therapy in pancreatic cancer

Growing solar: Optimizing agrivoltaic systems for crops and clean energy

Scientists discover how to reactivate cancer’s molecular “kill switch”

YouTube influencers: gaming’s best friend or worst enemy?

uOttawa scientists use light to unlock secret of atoms

NJIT mathematician to help map Earth's last frontier with Navy grant

NASA atmospheric wave-studying mission releases data from first 3,000 orbits

‘Microlightning’ in water droplets may have sparked life on Earth

Smoke from wildland-urban interface fires more deadly than remote wildfires

What’s your body really worth? New AI model reveals your true biological age from 5 drops of blood

Protein accidentally lassos itself, helping explain unusual refolding behavior

With bird flu in raw milk, many in U.S. still do not know risks of consuming it

University of Minnesota research team awarded $3.8 million grant to develop cell therapy to combat Alzheimer’s disease

UConn uncovers new clue on what is leading to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and ALS

Resuscitation in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest – it’s how quickly it is done, rather than who does it

A closer look at biomolecular ‘silly putty’

Oxytocin system of breastfeeding affected in mothers with postnatal depression

Liquid metal-enabled synergetic cooling and charging: a leap forward for electric vehicles

[Press-News.org] New diagnostic technology may lead to individualized treatments for prostate cancer
NanoVelcro chip device captures and isolates potentially high-risk cancer cells