A South Korean research team has developed a diagnostic technology that can detect lung cancer at an early stage using just a few drops of blood. This technology has drawn attention from the medical community because it can identify early-stage lung cancer, which has been challenging to detect with current tests like NGS liquid biopsy.
The Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) announced that a team led by Professor Cho Yoon-Kyung from the Department of Biomedical Engineering developed EV-CLIP, a new method for diagnosing cancer mutations using small amounts of untreated plasma.
This technology operates by merging extracellular vesicles (EVs) from blood with artificial liposomes (CLIP) containing molecular beacons inside a capillary thinner than a human hair.
Cancer cells release nano-sized vesicles with genetic mutation information, such as mRNA and miRNA. When molecular beacons interact with this information, they emit a fluorescent signal.
This method enables cancer diagnosis using only 20 microliters (µL) of plasma, equivalent to 4-5 drops of blood.
The research team enhanced detection sensitivity by designing the liposome surface to carry an electrical charge. This high sensitivity can identify specific cancer mutations, be used for early cancer diagnosis, and monitor residual cancer cells (minimal residual disease) after treatment.
Unlike conventional diagnostic methods, this approach eliminates the need for complex preprocessing steps to extract nano-sized vesicles or amplify genes from the plasma.
In a clinical trial analyzing blood samples from 83 patients, this new diagnostic technology accurately identified EGFR gene mutations, which is crucial for selecting lung cancer treatments, with 100% accuracy.
Notably, it also detected mutations in lung cancer patients at stages 1 and 2, which are often missed by existing NGS-based liquid biopsies.
This technology has been transferred to the biotech venture LabSpinner, which plans to develop it into an easy-to-use hospital diagnostic kit.
Professor Cho stated, “We’ve opened a new frontier in cancer detection, enabling early diagnosis and treatment monitoring with just a few drops of blood. This technology promises to significantly reduce patients’ discomfort and financial burden while providing highly accurate diagnoses.”
The research findings were published as the cover article in ACS Nano.
The study was conducted in collaboration with teams from Chonnam National University Hospital, Pusan National University Hospital, and Inha University Hospital, with support from the Institute for Basic Science and the National Research Foundation of Korea.