Circulating Tumor Cells and Solid Tumor Tissue

Circulating Tumor Cells and Solid Tumor Tissue
Current methods for isolating bulk tumor tissue are often invasive and painful, including biopsies used for diagnosis and surgical procedures performed for treatment.  Neither of these approaches is compatible with monthly isolation of tumor tissue for personalized medicine approaches.  An alternative approach is to isolate circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from the bloodstream.  Circulating tumor cells are those cells that have broken free from the solid tumor and spread through the body via the bloodstream.  CTCs can be isolated from a sample of blood, which eliminates the need for more invasive procedures as well as provides uncontaminated cancer cells necessary for developing the protocols and tests needed for personalized medicine. Biocytics™ is currently developing methodologies for isolation and culture of CTCs. 

Why bank tumor cells?
1.  These cells can be used in specific assays (such as Biocytics™’ proprietary Tumor Apoptosis Viability Assay, or TAVA) to predict in vivo drug response to targeted drugs.

2.  These CTCs can be used in TAVAs to predict drug response to agents now in
pre-clinical and clinical development.

3.  These cells can be used to create a personalized cancer immunotherapy platform.   Tumor cells may be manipulated in the laboratory such that, when they are reintroduced to the body, they can “train” the immune system to attack and kill the cancer cells.