Heriot-Watt project wins £0.75 mill for alternative to painful cancer biopsies
26 Aug 2024
Researchers at Heriot-Watt University are developing a new method of identifying cancerous DNA which could reduce the need for painful biopsy surgery.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has awarded more than £750,000 to the team for its work on new, non-invasive methods of identifying cancerous DNA.
The MicroSNARE project – led by professor Nicholas Leslie (left), an academic lead for fighting cancer in the university’s Global Research Institute in Health and Care Technologies, and institute co-lead professor Maïwenn Kersaudy-Kerhoas – aims to circumvent the need for often painful biopsies.
At present this method, which involves excision of tumour tissue samples, represents the most effective means to analyse cancers and identify best treatment options.
However, patients’ blood offers an alternative because of the presence of small amounts of DNA. Among this is a proportion comprising circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) that has come directly from the tumour.
Differentiated from healthy circulating DNA, ctDNA contains those mutations that transform healthy cells into cancer cells. This can reveal more specific information about the individual's cancer from which it is possible to infer the treatments most likely to succeed.
Yet, this presents a dilemma, explained Leslie:
“In late-stage cancer patients, there's quite a lot of DNA in the bloodstream that would be from a tumour, but often it's too late to cure those patients.
“In early-stage cancer patients, the chances of successful treatment are higher, but something like 99% or more of the free circulating DNA in a blood sample will have come from healthy cells in the body, making identifying mutant DNA more difficult.”
In order to combat the challenge of identifying ctDNA in early stage patients, the Heriot-Watt team developed its new method to process blood samples, easing the detection and characterisation of cancerous DNA.
Using blood samples from breast cancer patients, researchers aim to develop robotic benchtop and microfluidic platforms, in order to assess the best methods to offer more accurate and less expensive detection of ctDNA.
“What we want to do is further develop a technique we’ve tested in the lab which we plan will allow us to diagnose, analyse and characterise tumours much earlier, as well as detecting the recurrence of cancer before it’s had a chance to develop and spread,” added Leslie.
The Heriot-Watt team is collaborating with Dr Olga Oikonomidou (right), breast cancer translational research lead at the University of Edinburgh Institute of Genetics and Cancer, to access the necessary blood samples to validate the technique.
Said Oikonomidou: “ctDNA provides a more comprehensive genomic landscape of the entire disease and is superior for detecting certain acquired genomic alterations as tissue biopsies are subject to sampling bias. Moreover, [it] offers faster turnaround time and greater feasibility compared to tissue biopsies.”
Director for Cross-Council Programmes at EPSRC Dr Kedar Pandya said the MicroSNARE approach could offer less invasive, earlier identification and prompt intervention. And illustrated the value of investing in research particularly that harnessed both robotics and microbiology.
Anyone interested in collaborating with the new Health and Care Technologies global research institute at Heriot-Watt University can contact GRID@hw.ac.uk
