Evaluation of Antibodies Specific to Pluripotent Stem Cells for the Diagnosis of Aggressive and Metastatic Cancers

摘要

Background: Over 90% of all cancer related deaths are due to metastasis and current existing cancer markers and diagnostic tools are not able to distinguish between malignant and benign cancers. In order to achieve meaningful progress in cancer treatment, new early stage technologies and biomarkers that accurately diagnose life-threatening disease are needed. The project is driven by the hypothesis that metastatic cancers are caused by embryonic/pluripotent cancer stem cells. CureMeta has developed antibodies specific to antigens uniquely expressed on pluripotent cancer stem cells. In collaboration with UTSouthwestem the goal of this study is to test these antibodies as a predictive tool for metastatic disease and to develop new diagnostic cancer tests.