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Non-invasive mRNA Serum Test for Early Detection of Pancreatic Cancer

MicroRNAs as a biomarker for pancreatic cancer, for an affordable test that is potentially fast, with high specificity and sensitivity.

  • Diagnostics

Project Overview

  • Early detection of prostate cancer is hindered by a lack of distinct symptoms until later stages of the disease when treatment is further challenged.
  • There is an urgent unmet need for a non-invasive, affordable, and easily deployable screening method for detection of pancreatic cancer in, and beyond, high-risk populations. 
  • Scientists from Dana-Farber and their colleagues identified a panel of microRNAs as a biomarker for pancreatic cancer.
  • The technology is available for licensing.

Technology

Researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and from Medical University Lodz are known for their collaborative work on developing microRNAs as biomarkers for diseases including cancer. Applying newly developed dedicated machine learning training protocols to patient samples, their labs identified a panel of microRNAs as a biomarker for pancreatic cancer. These microRNAs can be isolated from bodily fluids via non-invasively sampling of circulating blood. Their subsequent sequencing is done via widely available qPCR or miRNA sequencing techniques. Through statistical analysis, by feeding the sequence data into the fully trained machine learning algorithm, a pancreatic cancer risk score is obtained. 

The effectiveness of this method was tested in experiments with a randomly mixed cohort of healthy and pancreatic cancer patients. Employing miRNA sequencing techniques identified pancreatic cancer with a sensitivity and specificity of 71% and 91%, respectively, while qPCR techniques resulted in a sensitivity and specificity of 76% and 92%, respectively.

This technology offers multiple distinct advantages:

  • Potentially addresses the unmet need for a pancreatic cancer diagnostic. 
  • Only requires non-invasive sampled bodily fluids (e.g., blood). 
  • Makes use of established microRNA sequencing technology.
  • Straightforward, potentially fast, and affordable. 
  • Robust analysis with high specificity and sensitivity.

Team Members: Dipanjan Chowdhury, PhD, Wojciech Fendler, MD, PhD, Konrad Stawiski, MD, PhD

Applications

Adaptation of this potentially new diagnostic could be gradual starting with high-risk patients (e.g., obese, diabetic, and/or with a history of smoking) followed by the general population as part of an annual health check-in together with other tests requiring a blood sample (e.g., a lipid panel with a total cholesterol test).

Opportunities

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is looking for the right partner with an interest in licensing this asset for further development into a new pancreatic cancer diagnostic. 

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Team Members