New Approaches of Next Generation Sequencing of Circulating DNA in Cancer PatientsMonday, 27 October 2014 at 15:30 Add to Calendar ▼SELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com Circulating-free DNA (cfDNA) has been shown to be useful blood cancer biomarkers over the last decade. cfDNA can be used to monitor tumor progression, tumor response to treatment, and early detection of tumor recurrence. cfDNA biomarkers can occur in different forms such as mutations, amplification, loss of heterozygosity(LOH), methylation, and size integrity. We have shown the clinical utility of all these blood biomarkers in various solid tumors. Over the past years different assay approaches have been employed to detect cfDNA such as PCR based assays. However the major issue has been developing clinical utility for health payer reimbursement. More recently the utilization of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) has taken the assessment of cfDNA to a higher level of accuracy and sensitivity. We have employed a novel digital NGS approach in collaboration with Guardant Health for ultra-sensitive detection of cfDNA in approximately 2 ml of serum of solid tumors. Studies were designed in solid tumors such as melanoma with paired tumor tissues and serum. NGS was performed at 1000x coverage of the entire panel of 60 genes which allowed accurate detection of mutations/deletions across the complete gene as opposed to single targeted regions of a gene. We demonstrated high correlation of cfDNA to respective tumors and association with clinical tumor progression. The assay is now CLIA lab approved. Currently, we are validating the assay in multi-institute settings. |