Molecular Diagnostics
World Health Organization (WHO) states that as many as 30% of all cancers could be cured if diagnosed earlier. One reason is that tumors in early stages more frequently are operable. They also respond better to treatments and have not yet formed metastasis. In the early 1980´s, mammography was introduced to detect breast tumors earlier, which contributed to an improved five-year survival rate of >85%. Consequently, if cancer could be detected earlier, even before clinical symptoms, the therapies that are offered today would have an increased efficacy.
Being able to diagnose cancer earlier, based on a simple blood test, would open up for new possibilities in cancer treatments. Using the multiplexed microarray platform developed at Department of Immunotechnology, protein patterns/signatures in serum and tissue associated with different cancers can be analyzed. This platform has been validated in >16 different clinical studies, mostly in different cancer indications, but also in autoimmunity and infectious disease. The design and ability to produce a high quality multiplexed antibody microarray is based on over 20 years of experience with recombinant antibody libraries.
Within the MAD for Cancer Program, molecular diagnostic will contribute to define, 1) early diagnosis of patients at risk, 2) prognostication of treatment efficacy and 3) evidence-based treatment strategies. This will be performed by the multiplexed analysis of serum in combination with advanced bioinformatics, which will result in the deciphering of complex protein patterns associated with clinical parameters.