In Vitro Cancer Diagnostic Test

Kansas State University researchers developed a new and effective in vitro diagnostic method to measure the activity of multiple proteases produced by cancers. This innovation provides numerous potential advantages over the existing fluorescence detection commonly used, from portability and sample size to accuracy and cost.

ADVANTAGES:

• Increased portability: can be developed into a disposable chip in a portable system for point-of-care or clinical applications, eliminating the need for a centralized lab.
• Very small sample size: only a single drop of blood, serum, urine or saliva is used to detect multiple proteases.
• Increased accuracy: detection accuracy is significantly increased because the analysis is based on multiple proteases as disease biomarkers.
• Lower Cost: cost of using mass produced chips would be lower than the existing fluorescence technique.

APPLICATIONS:

• In vitro cancer diagnostic testing
• Frequent and easy monitoring of treatment effects when patients are given anticancer medicine.
• Multiple analysis to improve accuracy.
• Screening for effective protease inhibitors as drug candidates.

Patent Status:

• US Patent Application #14/320,215 filed on June 30, 2014.