Apostle invents best-in-class cfDNA technologies, used in a liquid biopsy. We partner with Beckman Coulter Life Sciences to offer our innovative technologies, automated or manual, featured in Science, 2019;364(6441):696, New Products.
Background
Circulating free DNA (cfDNA) are degraded DNA fragments released to the blood plasma after diseased or normal cells die.
cfDNA can be used to describe various forms of DNA freely circulating the bloodstream, including circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)
and cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA)
, and therefore, has become a biomarker for cancer and fetal medicine.
In addition, it can be used for a wide range of conditions, including sepsis, aseptic inflammation, transplantation, etc.
A liquid biopsy is the sampling and analysis of non-solid biological tissue, primarily blood,
often utilizing cfDNA as a biomarker.
A liquid biopsy has unleashed the potential to track and monitor important diseases, such as cancer, in a non-invasive and
more effective manner.
Extensive scientific research has shown liquid biopsy to have important advantageous properties for clinical utility (e.g., most recently 1-4). Therefore, it has been named as a top breakthrough technology that will disrupt healthcare especially for cancer by the World Economic Forum (2017) 5, Forbes (2016) 6, and MIT Technology Review (2015) 7.
Vision
cfDNA is present in very small amounts in the blood plasma. Apostle develops a best-in-class technique 8-14, Apostle MiniMax TM, to efficiently capture this cfDNA from a standard blood draw, as well as other innovations in the space of liquid biopsy. We aim to improve the efficiency and accuracy of liquid biopsy, and consequently, improve the survival rate of patients.
References
[About Liquid Biopsy]
[About Apostle MiniMax technology]