What challenges does Oncosema tackle?
Even though the monitoring of CTC rates in blood is an efficient biomarker to give real-time insights into cancer development, CTC remain exceedingly rare events among all the peripheral blood cells.
Oncosema patented technology can specifically capture and detect CTC in extremely complex environments.
Why is Oncosema technology innovative?
We own an exclusive license of a patent, describing an innovative method for the detection of CTC using specific antibodies targeting surface glycan markers, also known as TACA for Tumor Associated Carbohydrate Antigens.
Oncosema technology:
Specificity
Targets TACA that are exclusively present on CTC (and totally absent from regular cells).Sensitivity
Efficiently detects all CTC subtypes, whether they are epithelial, mesenchymal, or involved in epithelial-mesenchymal transition.Broad spectrum
Sorts CTC shed by tumor from any organ.Preserve viability
Preserves CTC viability, allowing various analyses.
How does it work?
1 - Viable CTC sorting
CTC are selectively captured from whole blood by magnetic particles coated with anti-TACA antibodies. Thanks to a magnet, CTC-beads complexes are isolated from all other blood cells. CTC are removed from beads using specific enzymes: they are released in a small volume of elution buffer, allowing their concentration.
2 - Downstream analyses
Oncosema technology opens up many possibilities following CTC sorting :
counting
using either an automated immunoassay system or a slide scanner
Spheroïde culture
CHARACTERIZATION
- Genomic sequencing
- Proteomic analysis
- Multi-drug resistance
- Stemness analyses
- Chemotherapeutic drugs sensitivity