- Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC) analysis has great potential to transform the cancer diagnostic landscape
- Ikoniscope® platform allows to find extremely rare cells
- Partnership with world-leading medical center further validates Ikonisys’ technology
Sheba Medical Center, the largest hospital in the Middle East, which is based in metro Tel Aviv, Israel, and Ikonisys Inc., a cell-based diagnostic company located in New Haven, Connecticut, USA and Milan, Italy, announced today the signing of a partnership agreement for the development of novel proprietary Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) tests, targeting specific cancers. The tests and applications will be aimed at a variety of potential clinical purposes, including treatment monitoring (the detection of disease recurrence) and companion diagnostics. Ikonisys will play an integral role within Sheba’s ARC innovation hub, which is accelerating and redesigning global healthcare through collaboration.
Prof. Iris Barshack, Head of the Institute of Pathology at Sheba Medical Center, commented, “We are excited to begin using the Ikoniscope® system provided by Ikonisys. Together, we aim to improve the detection of disease recurrence and clinically validate applications for various types of cancers while contributing to Sheba Medical Center’s mission to deliver excellent, highly innovative comprehensive diagnoses and care management to patients.”
Michael Kilpatrick, Chief Scientific Officer of Ikonisys, added, “We are proud to cooperate with one of the world’s leading medical centers in developing innovative tests for the diagnosis and monitoring of cancers. This partnership validates our proprietary Ikoniscope® technology and coincides with the launch of our second-generation system. The cooperation also enables us to further expand Ikonisys’ product portfolio, strengthening our commitment in the world of CTCs to continuously improve cancer treatment.”
The circulating tumor cells detection test possesses the ability to detect, quantify, and analyze tumor cells in the blood of cancer patients. With application in determining disease status, rate of disease progression and predicting the likely efficacy of a particular therapy or treatment, CTC analysis has great potential to transform the cancer diagnostic landscape. However, it has been limited so far by the difficulty in finding these extremely rare cells, that can be as few as 10 out of millions in a typical 10ml blood sample. The automated scanning and analysis capabilities of the Ikoniscope® platform allow the efficient screening of a much larger number of cells than would be possible by manual analysis, allowing the identification and enumeration of CTCs in the blood of cancer patients with high sensitivity and specificity.
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Sheba’s research team, led by Prof. Iris Barshack, will identify and propose biomarker panels for specific cancers of particular interest that will be evaluated as potential new Ikoniscope® CTC tests. All available clinical data will be collected for the patient samples being tested, including, for example, other available liquid biopsy data. This will allow evaluation of the potential complementary nature of cell-based CTC tests, such as performed on the Ikoniscope®, for characterization of individual tumor cells, compared to circulating DNA-based tests that provide global tumor genotype information.
Source: BioSpace
