Acoustic whole blood imaging flow cytometry for rare cell identification

This project addresses the need for new tools to detect and monitor the disease progression in patients with metastatic cancer. Breast and prostate cancer are the most common malignant cancers in women and men, respectively. Metastasis is the main threat in these cancers since it turns a curable local disease into a chronic lethal disease.

With emerging new targeting therapies, there is an unmet clinical need for improved prognostication, treatment prediction and treatment monitoring, where circulating tumor cells enumeration have potential to become a valuable tool.

But circulating tumor cells are very rare and the background of other blood cells is vast which makes it extremely challenging to classify and count these cells.In the project, we will develop acoustic whole-blood cytometry.

This will enable unbiased imaging and enumeration of circulating tumor cells through a panel of fluorescent antibodies with minimal pre-treatment.

The vision is that the approach will become standard equipment in hospital labs in the transition to more personalized healthcare.The project will evaluate key technical challenges on the path to commercialization.

The project has strong support from an industrial partner and from clinicians and pre-clinical researchers focused on breast and prostate cancer.