Acoustic whole blood imaging flow cytometry for rare cell identification

Informazioni relative al progetto

BLOODFLOW

ID dell’accordo di sovvenzione: 101187914

DOI

10.3030/101187914

Progetto chiuso

Data della firma CE 5 Settembre 2024

Data di avvio 1 Ottobre 2024

Data di completamento 31 Marzo 2026

Finanziato da

• European Research Council (ERC)

Costo totale

Nessun dato

Contributo UE

€ 150 000,00

Coordinato da

LUNDS UNIVERSITET
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BLOODFLOW (Acoustic whole blood imaging flow cytometry for rare cell identification)

Periodo di rendicontazione: 2024-10-01 al 2026-03-31

Sintesi del contesto e degli obiettivi generali del progetto

This project addresses the need for new tools to detect and monitor rare cells in blood, such as circulating tumor cells. Breast and prostate cancer are the most common malignant cancers in women and men, respectively. Metastasis is the main threat in these cancers since it turns a curable local disease into a chronic lethal disease. With emerging new targeting therapies, there is an unmet clinical need for improved prognostication, treatment prediction and treatment monitoring, where circulating tumor cells enumeration have potential to become a valuable tool. But circulating tumor cells are very rare and the background of other blood cells is vast, which makes it extremely challenging to classify and count these cells. Researchers will develop acoustic whole-blood imaging flow cytometry in which circulating tumor cells are drawn out directly from blood using an acoustic field. This will enable unbiased imaging and enumeration of circulating tumor cells through a panel of fluorescent antibodies with minimal pre-treatment.

Lavoro eseguito dall’inizio del progetto fino alla fine del periodo coperto dalla relazione e principali risultati finora ottenuti

Researchers investigated some current uncertainties on the path to further development and future commercialisation of this technology. To demonstrate feasibility, the researchers developed fast multichannel fluorescence imaging capabilities compatible with an acoustofluidic chip for drawing out target cancer cells from undiluted blood. In the next step, they investigated new chip designs to increase the throughput of the blood cell separation to scale up the volumetric sample flow toward 10 mL within one hour while maintaining a low-enough flow velocity to enable good image quality. In the final steps, the researchers evaluated the chip design for identification of rare cells in undiluted healthy donor blood.

Progressi oltre lo stato dell’arte e potenziale impatto previsto (incluso l’impatto socioeconomico e le implicazioni sociali più ampie del progetto fino ad ora)

The project managed to successfully demonstrate a proof of concept that fluorescence imaging of rare cells in whole blood is feasible using the proposed mechanism of expelling rare labelled cells by acoustic cell self-organisation. It was concluded, however, that the current design needs to be improved to enable robust performance.