Prostate cancer pilot grant update

Emory Urology is excited to participate in the ongoing development of a new diagnostic device for cancer diagnostics. The recent publication in Nature Communications describes the promising results with meshed microwells (essentially a microchip with enhanced filtration features) to carefully capture and identify circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters from a blood sample. The CTC clusters are important in the biology of cancer growth and metastasis. The project is led by Dr. Fatih Sarioglu from the department of Electrical Engineering at Georgia Tech working closely with Dr. Martin Sanda from the Department of Urology, and Dr. Asim Bilen from Emory Hematology/Oncology. “This is a technology that allows these precious circulating tumor cell clusters cirtually in any cancer to be accessed with precision and practicality that has not been possible before” says Dr. Sarioglu, with the potential to open a wide new array of research on CTC clusters that had previously been very elusive. The multi-institutional collaboration was brought to fruition by the Winship’s Prostate Cancer Program Pilot Grant Project supported by the John Kaufman Prostate Cancer Fundraiser at Dunwoody Country Club’s. This is the event’s 26th annual year, and we are very excited by the new possibilities for this grant program to push forward the research for prostate cancer.