Tadpole Assays for the Molecular Assessment of Cancer

描述（由申请人提供）： 生物学家早就知道，癌细胞有时会通过向血液中释放某些分子来宣布它们的存在。最近，许多人开始相信，一些癌症可能是通过“签名”，分子组的模式，可能通常存在于血液中，但在某些癌症中，存在的量高于或低于正常。最近，我们学会了制造新型分子，我们称之为“蝌蚪”。我们已经证明，我们可以用它们来检测和计数少量的分子。这些检测方法相对简单且相对便宜，它们应该适用于两种癌症检测。在接下来的3年里，我们寻求资金来开发和“强化”这些检测方法，使其能够在临床癌症诊断中进行测试。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Biologists have long known that cancer cells sometimes announce their presence by shedding certain molecules into the blood. More recently, many have come to believe that some cancers might be detectable by "signatures", patterns of sets of molecules, perhaps normally present in the blood, but, in for certain cancers, present in higher or lower amounts than normal. Recently, we learned to make new kinds of molecules, which we call "tadpoles". We have demonstrated that we can use them to detect and count small numbers of molecules. These assays are relatively simple and relatively inexpensive, and they should be applicable to both kinds of cancer detection. During the next 3 years, we seek funding to develop and "harden" these assays to the point that they can be tested in clinical cancer diagnosis.