Technion Develops New Blood Test To Detect Cancer

Technion University researchers in Israel have come up with a new and simple blood test that may be able to detect cancer.

Professor Ari Admon, who led the research team, said its technique may “provide a large enough source of information to enable personalized treatment for the disease.” The researchers’ study was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 Current blood tests for cancer detect where cancer cells are in the blood, but the technique developed by Prof. Admon’s team has come up with a test that can identify different types of cancers and other diseases.

The scientists’ report on a new source of blood-derived biomarkers may help doctors determine whether a recovering cancer patient has relapsed, and may someday aid in the early detection of a variety of cancers. The technique may also “provide a large enough source of information to enable personalized treatment for the disease,” Prof. Admon said.

The biomarkers consist of immune molecules called HLA and their cargo of peptides, which are degraded bits of protein that they haul to the surface of tumor cells. Since cancer cells release larger amounts of the HLA molecules, “we may be able to diagnose different disease, including cancer, by analyzing the repertoires of peptides carried by these soluble HLA,” he explained.

So far, the method has been tested in blood from patients with multiple myeloma and leukemia, as well as healthy people and cancer cells grown in the lab. If their process holds up under further intensive testing, the researchers say, it could form “a foundation for development of a simple and universal blood-based cancer diagnosis.”

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