UA Research Will Accelerate Development of Clinical Laboratory Blood Test for Breast Cancer
Use of synthetic antibodies and a finger prick sample of blood could give clinical laboratories new tool to screen for breast cancer
A simple clinical pathology laboratory blood test for early detection of breast cancer may be just around the corner. At the University of Arkansas (UA), researchers are building a library of synthetic antibodies called affitoids that can be used to detect breast cancer in its earliest stage.
Researchers believe they are closing in on the creation of an assay that can rapidly validate proteins secreted by microscopic breast cancer cells. “We want to implement a rapid screen that is sensitive, highly accurate, non-invasive and inexpensive,” said Shannon Servoss, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at UA. “Such a test would be easy to use and applicable to women of all ages, races and ethnicities,” she said. “Hopefully we will be able to make the test sensitive enough so that only a finger prick [specimen] is needed.”
