Blood tests for cancer, otherwise known as liquid biopsies are transforming clinical oncology by giving patients and oncologists details knowledge of a patient’s disease progression. The lab has developed tests for the most frequent cancers including breast, lung, prostate, ovarian and pancreatic cancers with others at earlier stages of development. A local clinical trial for women with metastatic breast cancer is being carried out, and a lung cancer study on patients being treated with immunotherapy has recently ended. A start-up company called mDETECT-Inc has also been spun out of the lab, though it is still well embedded in the University. By emphasizing translational research the lab is helping to change oncology practice around the world.
Selected Publications
1: Shoukat I, Mueller CR. Searching for DNA methylation in patients triple-negative breast cancer: a liquid biopsy approach. Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2023 Jan;23(1):41-51. doi: 10.1080/14737159.2023.2173579. Epub 2023 Feb 2. PMID:36715539.
2: Cristall K, Bidard FC, Pierga JY, Rauh MJ, Popova T, Sebbag C, Lantz O, Stern MH, Mueller CR. A DNA methylation-based liquid biopsy for triple-negative breast cancer. NPJ Precis Oncol. 2021 Jun 16;5(1):53. doi: 10.1038/s41698-021-00198-9. PMID: 34135468; PMCID: PMC8209161.
3: Carson JJK, Di Lena MA, Berman DM, Siemens DR, Mueller CR. Development and initial clinical correlation of a DNA methylation-based blood test for prostate cancer. Prostate. 2020 Sep;80(12):1038-1042. doi: 10.1002/pros.24025. Epub 2020 Jun 7. PMID: 32506642.