Proteome Systems, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, and Westmead Millennium Institute have announced a collaboration for the early detection of ovarian cancer
Proteome Systems will acquire the commercial rights to tumour protein TPD52 in the field of ovarian cancer.
Jennifer Byrne (Children's Hospital at Westmead and University of Sydney) and Anna deFazio (Westmead Millennium Institute at Westmead Hospital) recently discovered that TPD52 represents a novel molecular marker in ovarian cancer.
Proteome Systems is developing a rapid, non-invasive test for the early detection of ovarian cancer and will evaluate TPD52 for inclusion in this test.
Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynaecological cancer with over 100,000 deaths worldwide each year.
Currently, there are no reliable or cost-effective early screening tests available.
"We are currently validating two candidate protein biomarkers, identified through our proteomic and statistical analysis of plasma from patients with and without ovarian cancer", said Rebecca Harcourt, head of the ovarian cancer programme at Proteome Systems.
"The inclusion of TPD52 in this panel of biomarkers is an exciting development and may be complementary to our existing biomarkers.
"As the development of ovarian cancer is a complex process, it is highly unlikely that a single biomarker will provide the necessary specificity and sensitivity to be clinically useful" said Harcourt.
Byrne said: "We have recently shown that tumour protein TPD52 is not expressed in benign or normal ovarian tissue, but is only found in metastatic tissue.
"The next step is for Proteome Systems to apply its proteomics expertise to see if TPD52 can be identified in easily accessible body fluids such as blood".
"By collaborating with Proteome Systems, we hope to translate our knowledge of TPD52 expression in ovarian cancer into a non-invasive test, which could allow earlier disease diagnosis and improve the clinical outcome for patients" said deFazio.
