CaLiBRe (Cancer Liquid Biopsies for Real-time diagnostics and early intervention) is an end-to-end national cancer liquid biopsy program that seeks to use multi-modal profiling of liquid biopsies and data analytics to transform cancer care.
Cancer is a chronic disease. During a patient’s journey with cancer, metastases, treatment failure & therapy resistance can develop, leading to advanced disease and potentially death. Limited by current tools and detection methods, doctors react to these events after advanced or treatment refractory disease has developed. By detecting these events earlier, new treatment windows become possible to truncate progression to advanced cancer, potentially achieving cure.
The progression to advanced cancer is accompanied by the appearance of molecular alterations over time. These include changes in the composition of circulating metabolites, proteins and cell free DNA, which can be sampled through a liquid biopsy, providing an avenue for non-invasive routine monitoring. As these molecular markers are present at low frequencies, we are working to develop tools and overcome technical challenges to improve the accuracy and sensitivity of their detection.
Our program consists of longitudinal sample collection from recruited patients as they undergo treatment and subsequent surveillance followed by comprehensive annotation and collation of associated clinical information. Coupled with large scale multimodal molecular profiling and data analytics, we aim to discover novel biomarkers that can be developed into diagnostics for early detection and patient stratification, enabling more precise delivery of therapeutic interventions.