MedicaSpec (R-2787)

In the past decades many new drugs were developed that allow a successful treatment of different types of cancer. However, the ability to detect the presence of a tumour at an early stage is most of the time an important prerequisite but currently very difficult. Besides the mammography screenings for breast cancer, no tools are available that allow routine screening of large populations at risk for the development of a certain cancer type. This projects aims to develop a high throughput analyses that can detect the presence of breast and lung cancer. Lately, it became clear that besides genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics especially metabolomics has a high potential to become a new important approach for disease screening. In our recent study in collaboration with "Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg" (ZOL), UZ Leuven and the Leuvens Universitair Centrum voor Kankerpreventie, we showed that analysis of the metabolic composition enables us to discriminate breast cancer patients from control persons. The metabolites that underlie this detection were recently protected through patenting. During this project, the obtained results will be further validated and translated into a commercially valuable test. For the successful translation of the obtained research results into commercially valuable tests several aspects besides the R&D have to be taken into account. First of all, legislation requires the CE labeling of all new diagnostic tests upon commercialization. Hereto, a technical validation and risk analysis has to be performed and a quality system has to be set up. Furthermore, a business plan has to be created, in which a market analysis is included, goals and milestones are defined and the operational and financial plan are determined. This business plan will be the guidance of the spin-off and will be used to gather the required funding.

Keywords:BREAST CANCER

Disciplines:Basic sciences, Clinical sciences, Translational sciences