New Blood-Testing Methods Licensed to Quest

Exclusive use of five proprietary new blood testing methods developed by the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, USA) has been granted to Quest Diagnostics, Inc. (Teterboro, NJ, USA).

When available in the form of laboratory diagnostic tests, these methods may eliminate the need for painful and expensive bone marrow and other tissue extractions. Two U.S. patents are pending on the methods. The tests are intended to provide a safer, less-painful tool for the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of leukemia and lymphoma in cancer patients. Initial tests are expected to be available following validation, which could be as early as the end of 2005. Licensing terms were not disclosed.

Current diagnostic and monitoring tests for leukemia and lymphoma patients often require patients to undergo painful procedures, such as bone marrow biopsies, which require extraction of tissue with a bone-piercing, large-gauge needle. The new tests being developed by Quest are designed to detect certain proteins expressed on the surface of tumor cells, as well as molecular targets from the tumor cells. The assays will look for the proteins, called CD20, CD33, and CD52, as well as tumor-specific DNA and RNA in blood plasma. By measuring tumor constituents in the blood, as opposed to assessing a tissue sample, doctors may one day replace the current bone marrow biopsies that are painful for patients to endure.

"Our research has shown that testing for tumor constituents in the blood provides a more clinically useful assessment of a patient's disease status because it shows what is happening in the entire body, compared with biopsies where a tissue sample only provides information about a specific area,” noted Michael J. Keating, M.D., professor of medicine and deputy department chairman for the department of leukemia at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. "As a result, the new blood tests may allow oncologists to assess patients more frequently and thus provide more clinically relevant monitoring of their progress.”

The technology underlying the new tests was developed by the M.D. Anderson team as they observed that in hematologic diseases, tumor cells pour into circulation their DNA, RNA, and proteins, and these components can be detected in plasma. The common assumption has been that only proteins secreted by the tumor cell and released into plasma could be present in the plasma. Most proteins are not secreted but rather embedded in the cell surface or inside the cell. The breakthrough was finding that nonsecreted cell-surface proteins as well as their DNA and RNA are actually in the plasma and available for detection.





Related Links:
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Quest Diagnostics