Cancer Research

Understand cancer by mastering tumor heterogeneity

Cancer is a disease characterized by high intratumor heterogeneity both at the genetic and biological level.

Genetic heterogeneity is driven by the multiple aberration events that occur in cancer cells over time due to genomic instability. While tumor cells are originally clonal, mutations create subpopulations of cells as the tumor grows. The emergence of these subpopulations has a profound effect on the phenotypes of cells within a tumor, potentially altering the response to treatment.

Understanding a cancer well enough to be able to design more targeted therapies depends on a thorough comprehension of tumor genetic heterogeneity and how it changes over time.

Biological heterogeneity – the fact that tumor cells are intermingled with stromal cells in tissue biopsy and with blood cells in liquid biopsy – often compromises the genetic analysis.

Normal DNA may obscure important sequence mutations when the sample is a mixed population of normal and tumor cells, especially when the tumor cells are present as a very small percentage compared to the normal cell compartment.

Only the analysis of pure tumor cells, either singly or in pools, enables the most accurate and informative analysis of qualitative and quantitative genomic variation.

Our CELLSEARCH® and DEPArray™ technologies capture and isolate pure cancer cells from different samples to resolve the complexity of tumor heterogeneity.

The CELLSEARCH-DEPArray workflow is for research use only and not for use in diagnostic procedures.