Objective Cancer is one of the major causes of death worldwide. Early detection leads to treatment initiation in earlier cancer stages and therefore increases the chance of survival. However, appropriate diagnosis can be challenging because tissue acquisition of tumor samples for molecular testing often requires invasive procedure. To overcome these challenges researchers have focused on the real-time monitoring of molecules and cells in easily obtainable peripheral blood to gain diagnostic information, termed 'liquid biopsies'. A recent study by Best et al profiled purified platelet gene expression from cancer patients and healthy controls and was able to predict disease status and location of the primary tumor with 96% and 71% accuracy, respectively using a machine learning based algorithm. The pan-cancer nature of their finding is a major advancement compared to other liquid biopsy approaches and highlights the utility of platelets as an all-in-one platform for blood-based cancer diagnostics. We plan to advance the idea of platelet liquid biopsies by studying platelet single-cell RNA sequencing data from cancer patients and healthy controls. The overall goal of the proposed project is to investigate single platelet gene expression to gain insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying tumor driven changes in the platelet RNA profile. Fields of science medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncologynatural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsRNAnatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning Keywords Single-cell RNA-sequencing platelet liquid biopsy Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2016 - Individual Fellowships Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF) Coordinator HELMHOLTZ ZENTRUM MUENCHEN DEUTSCHES FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM FUER GESUNDHEIT UND UMWELT GMBH Net EU contribution € 159 460,80 Address Ingolstadter landstrasse 1 85764 Neuherberg Germany See on map Region Bayern Oberbayern München, Landkreis Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
