Dr. Rayjean Hung, Senior Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, and head of its Prosserman Centre for Population Health Research, designed and conducted a study in collaboration with researchers at the University Health Network looking at whether methylation patterns in the small fragments of DNA in blood could accurately represent the presence of several cancer types, early in the development of these diseases. “There is a lot of exciting research happening right now in the field of liquid biopsy. The ability to have a blood test instead of an invasive tissue biopsy, to predict or identify cancer can change how cancer is managed,” shares Dr. Hung. Read more about the study here
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In his latest publication, Dr. Andras Nagy, Senior Investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, has developed a remotely controlled killer switch or “Safe Cell” system for eliminating potentially dangerous cells during cell therapy, allowing researchers to calculate the likelihood of things going wrong. “We think that our ability to quantitate the risk is going to have a major impact on the future cell therapies because we can make this decision properly,” says Nagy. “The first principle in medicine is not to cause harm to the patient. As cell therapy moves into clinical practice, we must avoid causing harm by this new medicine.”