ANGLE plc (AGL), the AIM-listed liquid biopsy company, today announced that its Parsortix system has been used to detect the aggressive form of brain cancer that killed US Senator John McCain.
Glioblastoma is a fast-growing, aggressive type of central nervous system tumour that forms on the supportive tissue of the brain.
ANGLE plc (AGL) has created a technology called Parsortix that can be used to analyse the cells taken from a simple blood test.
And the company today announced that its Parsortix system was used to detect & analyse circulating tumour cells in glioblastoma.
It was generally understood that the clusters of circulating tumour cells in brain cancers like glioblastoma did not pass through the blood-brain barrier.
However, the new University of Basel research found that these circulating tumour cells do pass through the blood-brain barrier and can be harvested for analysis using ANGLE’s Parsortix system.
The authors said the work "provides the first evidence that circulating glioblastoma clusters can overcome the blood-brain barrier and reach the peripheral circulation".
The collaborative research was led by Professor Nicola Aceto at the University of Basel’s Cancer Metastasis Laboratory, and is now the subject of a further peer-reviewed publication in the British Journal of Cancer.
The publication is called "Detection of circulating tumour cell clusters in human glioblastoma" and can be read here.
On 25th August 2018, Senator John McCain was killed by the aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma after being diagnosed with the condition in July 2017.
Andrew Newland, the founder & chief executive of ANGLE, said: "The glioblastoma work is a further example of ground breaking research being undertaken by a Parsortix customer in addition to ANGLE's own efforts to commercialise the Parsortix system.
“University of Basel and their collaborators are working on the application of this approach for the treatment of glioblastoma patients and we look forward to reporting further developments in due course.”
Parsortix is based on a microfluidic device that captures live cells based on a combination of their size and compressibility.
The system has a CE Mark for Europe and FDA clearance is in process for the United States.
To follow news & updates about ANGLE plc (AGL) click here:
