Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cell Heterogeneity Using a Multi-Marker Microscale Capture Approach as a tool in the Management and Treatment of Cancer

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Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) are cells released from a primary tumour into the bloodstream of a patient and have beenimplicated in metastasis. Monitoring these cells represents a means to monitor a patients disease progression without theneed for invasive tissue sampling. These cells, however, are extremely rare with single-digit cell counts existing in abackground of billions of blood cells. It is therefore very challenging to isolate these cells. We have developed a noveldevice that is capable of not only capturing these cells from a patients blood sample, but also sorting these cells based ontheir surface proteins. In this proposal we aim to use the expression levels of these surface proteins to characterize thepropensity of certain subpopulations of CTCs to metastasize and form tumours elsewhere in the body. In addition we willexpand the utility of this device to profile CTCs based on multiple markers simultaneously. This knowledge, along with highresolutionpopulation profiling of CTCs, may prove to be a powerful tool for clinicians in the management and treatment ofcancer.