The client in this case study is a Senior Director leading bioinformatics research and development for a healthcare company whose goal is to improve cancer treatment through diagnostic tools that enable early detection.
The primary focus of their research is biomarker discovery for development of liquid biopsy tests in solid tumor indications. Discovery Life Sciences (Discovery) is proud to be a strategic partner to this innovative company since 2016, providing blood, plasma, and dissociated tumor cells (DTCs) samples from various solid tumor indications. This case study chronicles Discovery’s timely provision of tumor cell suspensions from DTCs for this client’s downstream sequencing applications.
Discovery recognizes the sensitive nature of our client’s innovative research and therefore carefully and intentionally protects our client’s identity throughout this case study.
Study Parameters
- 100 patients covering 9 solid tumor indications (191 total samples were processed due to the variability of tumor cell percentages within the indications)
- DTC samples must be characterized by flow cytometry for tumor and immune cell populations, as samples were selected based on tumor cell percentages
- Patients must be early stage and untreated
- Negative selection must be used to isolate the tumor cells
- Cell yields of >1 million were initially required, but this amount was reduced to 200k – 500k due to the excellent DNA yields demonstrated in the pilot
- The remaining positively selected cells from DTCs must be aliquoted and delivered to the client
- 1 additional DTC vial from each patient must be reserved until completion of the screening study
