
Possible universal cancer biomarker discovered (simple 10 minute test) - Hugie
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07214-w
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Hugie
TLDR: 10 Minute Cancer test

[https://www.natureasia.com/en/research/highlight/12801](https://www.natureasia.com/en/research/highlight/12801)

"Cancer: Detecting the presence of cancer cells Nature Communications

December 5, 2018 A test to detect cancerous cells, which can be performed in
ten minutes, is presented in Nature Communications this week. The assay
exploits the differences between the DNA in cancerous and healthy cells to
allow for a quick, initial diagnosis.

The attachment of methyl groups to DNA (in a process called methylation) is
genetically programmed. In all ‘mature’ human cells, DNA carries these
modifications. The genomic information in cancer cells is significantly
different from healthy cells, resulting in a different methylation level and
pattern in most types of cancer cells.

Matt Trau and colleagues found that the different methylation landscape in
cancer cells affects the physical and chemical properties of DNA. Amongst
other features, it binds more strongly to gold nanoparticles and the authors
used this behaviour to develop a test to detect cancer. The assay requires a
tiny amount of purified genomic DNA from a patient and takes about ten
minutes. The outcome of the test can be assessed with the naked eye. They
tested their approach on over 100 human samples (genomic DNA from patients
with cancer (72) and healthy individuals (31)) representing various cancer
types.

At this stage, the assay can only detect the presence of cancer cells, not
their type or the stage of the disease. Moving forward, the approach needs
further testing with more samples and - possibly - refinement to allow for a
more detailed analysis."

