Extending the shelf life of fresh human biopsies to enable improved diagnostics and pre-clinical development.

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As the UK shifts towards an ageing population the rates of disease associated with ageing, including cancers, will rise and the UK healthcare system will be placed under additional stress. To improve disease diagnostics and treatment, the healthcare sector is moving towards a more personalised, individually focussed approach. However, research and development in this area relies on access to high-quality, fresh, viable tissue biopsy samples. Currently, most biopsies are processed so that the tissue is no longer viable or fresh, and there is no clinically available solution to preserve biopsies fresh. As such, the shelf-life of fresh patient samples is very short at a few hours, which can lead to patient tissue being wasted as well as placing severe limitations on the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic assays.A technology has been developed that enables the safe storage of fresh biological samples, extending their lifespan at room temperatures. This technology has effectively preserved a wide range of cell types, such as stem cells, primary skin and blood products. Furthermore, the technology is being applied to pioneering therapies, currently undergoing clinical trials, that use live cells to treat diseases and conditions that cannot be successfully treated with conventional drugs. This project proposes to extend this technology to design a novel and innovative storage application to preserve biopsy samples at room temperature, extending the viability of testing samples beyond their limited shelf-life. This would enable the advancement of novel and speci?c therapeutics based on more complex and physiologically relevant cancer models.This new biopsy storage application would consist of a kit that is simple and quick for healthcare professionals to use. By eliminating the need to immediately ?x or freeze tissue samples, the number of downstream applications is dramaticallyincreased and allows for sensitive assays that require genomic or viable samples to be performed. Ultimately, to ensure the growing number of disease cases are managed ef?ciently, both from an economic and social perspective, healthcare will have to rely on more speci?c and complex methods to diagnose, monitor and treat disease.A product like this has the exciting potential to accelerate the development of these novel solutions to improve disease management and patient outcomes.