Great progress has been made in treating cancer, however metastasis for most patients remains incurable,causing up to 90% of cancer deaths. Metastasis accounts for 8 million deaths per year worldwide and very fewtherapeutic options are available that prevent the spread of cancer. The metastatic process often begins withclusters of cancer cells that leave the primary tumor and enter circulation in the blood stream. Upon disseminationinto distant organs, these clusters survive and give rise to proliferating metastatic tumors, which in turn can leadto additional metastases. While virtually all oncology-related drugs aim to kill cancer cells within a primary tumor,no drugs are available to target metastatic cell clusters in transit. As a consequence, it is nearly impossible toblock or prevent the metastatic cascade. However, it has been recently shown that targeting these circulatinghighly metastatic cancer cell clusters can significantly reduce the spread of cancer. This discovery strengthensthe urgent need to identify unique drug targets specific to these clusters.We recently developed and produced a microfluidic device that allows the specific capture and characterizationof these cancer cell clusters from a patient's blood sample. Integrated into our technology, we utilize a completelynovel dual-capture approach based on a combination of biomimicry and immuno-capture. This dual-captureapproach provides a substantial advantage since it biases capturing the most malignant cancer cell clusters.This exciting new technology will enable the focused characterization of these clusters and allow thedevelopment of a new class of anti-metastatic therapies, the "Cluster-Busters', that will delay or preventmetastasis in cancer patients. Thus, within this technology validation application, we aim to screen lung cancer patients' blood samples forcirculating cancer cell clusters using our novel capture approach. A substantial advantage imparted by ourapproach is the collection of viable and naïve clusters allowing phenotypic, genomic, and functional assays. Wewill characterize these clusters using established tools, such as immunohistochemistry and RNA-sequencing.The conclusion of our study will confirm our technology's ability to expedite the discovery of novel drug targets. 8. Project Narrative
Death from lung cancer is the highest among all cancers and is caused by metastasis to other vital organs.
New technology that mimics human blood vessels in a microfluidic chip can now be used to capture and analyze
the rare cancer cell clusters responsible for metastasis. Targeting these clusters is a completely new paradigm
for anti-metastatic cancer therapy, which can dramatically reduce cancer's spread and save patient's lives. Aftercare ; After Care ; After-Treatment ; post treatment ; Antibodies ; Biological Assay ; Assay ; Bioassay ; Biologic Assays ; Blood ; Blood Reticuloendothelial System ; Blood Circulation ; Bloodstream ; Circulation ; Blood Vessels ; vascular ; Malignant Neoplasms ; Cancers ; Malignant Tumor ; malignancy ; neoplasm/cancer ; Cells ; Cell Body ; Client ; Cytokeratin ; Cessation of life ; Death ; Pharmaceutical Preparations ; Drugs ; Medication ; Pharmaceutic Preparations ; drug/agent ; Exhibits ; Fibroblasts ; Goals ; Human ; Modern Man ; Hyaluronic Acid ; Immunohistochemistry ; Immunohistochemistry Cell/Tissue ; Immunohistochemistry Staining Method ; Immunologic Surveillance ; Immune Surveillance ; Immunologic Surveillances ; Immunological Surveillance ; Immunological Surveillances ; Immunosurveillance ; Immunotherapy ; Immune mediated therapy ; Immunologically Directed Therapy ; immune therapeutic approach ; immune therapeutic interventions ; immune therapeutic regimens ; immune therapeutic strategy ; immune therapy ; immune-based therapies ; immune-based treatments ; immuno therapy ; Lead ; Pb element ; heavy metal Pb ; heavy metal lead ; Methods ; mortality ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Metastasis ; Metastasize ; Metastatic Lesion ; Metastatic Mass ; Metastatic Neoplasm ; Metastatic Tumor ; Secondary Neoplasm ; Secondary Tumor ; cancer metastasis ; tumor cell metastasis ; Legal patent ; Patents ; Patients ; Phenotype ; Proteins ; Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor ; EGF Receptor ; EGFR ; ERBB Protein ; Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Kinase ; Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinase ; Epidermal Growth Factor-Urogastrone Receptors ; HER1 ; TGF-alpha Receptor ; Transforming Growth Factor alpha Receptor ; Urogastrone Receptor ; c-erbB-1 ; c-erbB-1 Protein ; erbB-1 ; erbB-1 Proto-Oncogene Protein ; erbBl ; proto-oncogene protein c-erbB-1 ; Recurrence ; Recurrent ; Metastatic to ; Stains ; Staining method ; Technology ; Time ; Stromal Cells ; Guidelines ; base ; density ; Organ ; Blood specimen ; Blood Sample ; Clinical ; Malignant - descriptor ; Malignant ; Histologic ; Histologically ; Link ; Individual ; Malignant neoplasm of lung ; Malignant Tumor of the Lung ; Pulmonary Cancer ; Pulmonary malignant Neoplasm ; lung cancer ; Oncology ; Oncology Cancer ; lung cancer screening ; lung cancer early detection ; Therapeutic ; Genetic ; Malignant Cell ; cancer cell ; tool ; Metastatic Cancer ; Metastatic Malignant Neoplasm ; Disseminated Malignant Neoplasm ; Whole Blood ; Autologous ; Stream ; Distant ; cell type ; System ; interest ; innovative technologies ; Performance ; PBMC ; Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell ; Primary Tumor ; Primary Neoplasm ; novel ; validation studies ; novel technologies ; new technology ; Sampling ; Biological Mimetics ; Biomimetics ; Genomics ; Cancer Treatment ; Malignant Neoplasm Therapy ; Malignant Neoplasm Treatment ; anti-cancer therapy ; anticancer therapy ; cancer-directed therapy ; cancer therapy ; circulating cancer cell ; drug discovery ; µfluidic ; Microfluidics ; Distant Cancer ; Distant Metastasis ; preventing ; prevent ; Microfluidic Device ; Microfluidic Lab-On-A-Chip ; microfluidic chip ; Microfluidic Microchips ; Data ; Detection ; NCCN ; National Comprehensive Cancer Network ; Proliferating ; Cancer Cluster ; Cancer Etiology ; Cancer Cause ; Cancer Patient ; Collection ; Non-Malignant ; nonmalignant ; Patient-Focused Outcomes ; Patient outcome ; Patient-Centered Outcomes ; Validation ; technology validation ; technology implementation ; Process ; Development ; developmental ; tumor microenvironment ; cancer microenvironment ; vector ; virtual ; Outcome ; tumorigenic ; prospective ; innovation ; innovate ; innovative ; metastatic process ; pre-clinical research ; preclinical research ; novel therapeutics ; new drug treatments ; new drugs ; new therapeutics ; new therapy ; next generation therapeutics ; novel drug treatments ; novel drugs ; novel therapy ; new therapeutic target ; new drug target ; new druggable target ; new pharmacotherapy target ; new therapy target ; novel drug target ; novel druggable target ; novel pharmacotherapy target ; novel therapeutic target ; novel therapy target ; drug candidate ; transcriptome sequencing ; RNA Seq ; RNA sequencing ; RNAseq ; Drug Targeting ; targeted treatment ; targeted drug therapy ; targeted drug treatments ; targeted therapeutic ; targeted therapeutic agents ; targeted therapy ; Genomic approach ; genomic effort ; genomic strategy ; rare cancer ; cancers that are rare ; rare malignancy ; rare tumor ; lung cancer cell ;
