Project SANGUINE addresses the objectives raised by the Cancer Mission Call, which emerged from the growing societal challenge faced by European citizens. According to the European Cancer Information System (ECIS), each year, 2.7 million people in the EU are diagnosed with cancer. The SANGUINE project focuses on hematological malignancies, which account for 10% of those cases, and aims to target the four objectives of the Cancer Mission: (1) understanding, (2) prevention, including screening and early detection, (3) diagnosis, and (4) quality of life improvement of the patients and their relatives.
The project introduces a novel blood test that detects and classifies a set of hematological malignancies. The test is based on detecting a combination of epigenetic biomarkers in DNA from peripheral blood cells and in cell-free DNA from blood plasma.
The SANGUINE test will provide superior sensitivity at low-cost, which is ideal for screening purposes. This is enabled by direct fluorescent labeling of epigenetic marks in patient DNA and its analysis on a custom designed microarray – the HemaChip. SANGUINEs’ team consists of a comprehensive and strong team of experts that will address medical, technological, and social aspects of the developed blood-test. A strong partnership with several medical centers will enable optimization of the test for hematological malignancies following a user-centric approach and experiencing its implementation in “real-life” clinical settings. The social part of the team includes researchers and patient organizations that will promote accessibility of the test to patients and individuals at-risk for screening, early detection and disease management, in combination with a study aiming to increase the screening rates. Ultimately, our project will provide HemaChips, validated reagents,, and data analysis software that provide an end-to-end solution for large-scale screening and early-stage commercialization
