Development of a new diagnostic tool to detect early breast cancer in females (Poster, Biomedica 2012)

Breast cancer is the most common invasive cancer in women worldwide. According to estimates nearly 480,000 women died because of breast cancer in 2008. Therefore it is increasingly important to develop a method, which identifies breast cancer at an early stage, so that a therapy can be induced very fast. The Interreg IV-A project MICROBIOMED (MICROtechnologies for BIOMEDical applications) was funded to achieve this goal by developing an in vitro diagnostic tool. At the end of the project an antibody-based assay will be presented, which is integrated into a biochip system to facilitate a simple and quick breast-cancer diagnosis. The first aim of this study was the development of a “proof-of-principle” for the biochip setup with the EGFR [2], which is overexpressed in 16-48% of breast cancers. Therefore a sandwich Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) with the natural ligand EGF and the single chain variable fragment 425 (scFv425) will be generated. The scFv425 binds to the EGFR but also inhibits the binding of EGF to the EGFR. Afterwards the setup will be adapted to the biochip and the specificity and sensitivity will be compared. In addition to this standard cancer marker, four secretory proteins were identified. Currently they are used to generate murine antibodies, which then can be utilized to setup further relevant diagnostic assays.

Edited by : EMI, Magdalena Bialon