| Project Detail |
Technological advances for early cancer detection
Early detection at more manageable stages of cancer can improve prognosis, treatment options, and survival rates. However, this necessitates the identification of proper biomarkers and their quick and accurate detection, desirably, in blood, at low concentrations through sensitive assays and sensors. With the support of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions programme, the STRIM project will focus on the identification and detection of aberrant post-translational modifications of proteins and nucleic acids in cancer. The consortium will train doctoral candidates in the development of bioinformatic approaches for biomarker discovery, electrochemiluminescence-based screening tools, and regulatory health technology assessments for social acceptability of the produced tests and devices for cancer detection. Collectively, STRIM deliverables are expected to improve the accuracy and speed of cancer diagnostics.
Cancer remains one of the greatest challenges to the EU healthcare systems. Early detection and diagnosis dramatically increases the prospect of successful treatment and survival. Academia and the rapidly growing cancer diagnostics and biosensors sectors have an urgent need for researchers skilled in developing improved screening technologies, which can offer major opportunities to impact cancer survival. However, the development of assays with the required sensitivity, reliability and technology formats for multi-cancer early detection is only recently emerging and faces significant R&D challenges.
STRIM will train a cohort of researchers in the multi-disciplinary science, bioinformatics, technology, social, clinical and health-economic skills required to deliver comprehensive bioelectronic tools for cancer screening, tools that are fast, accurate, sensitive, and exploit advanced molecular receptors and nanobiotechnologies for detection of aberrant post-translational modifications (PTM) of proteins and nucleic acids as cutting-edge biofluid markers for early detection of cancers. Growing evidence suggests that PTM play important roles in human cancers and are likely to prove highly specific for cancer type. Focusing on both genomic and proteomic PTM biomarkers will be a game-changing strategy for improving early cancer detection rates, efficiency and population health.
Doctoral training in STRIM will encompass state-of-the art approaches for ultra-sensitive detection of PTM biomarkers as cancer screening tools by building on recent advances in electrochemiluminescence, aptamer and DNA microarrays and conducting polymer micro-structured electrodes. These techniques will reach new levels of specificity and overcome barriers to the realization of multiplexed diagnostics for enhanced cancer screening. All translational issues will be considered in harmonization with regulatory and health technology assessment and social acceptability will be screened in the population. |
