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Ludwig Johns Hopkins researchers develop new DNA detection method to improve liquid biopsies
May 6, 2021, NEW YORK – A team of researchers at the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins has developed a far more sensitive and accurate next-generation gene sequencing technology for the detection of rare fragments of mutated DNA shed by tumors into body fluids.
The detection of such DNA fragments-commonly referred to as “liquid biopsies”-holds the promise of easing the detection of cancers at their earliest stages, when they are most likely to be curable.
In a study led by Ludwig Johns Hopkins researchers Bert Vogelstein, Kenneth Kinzler, Nickolas Papadopoulos and MD-PhD student Joshua Cohen and published May 3 in Nature Biotechnology, the team reported the development and analytical assessment of SaferSeqS (for “Safer Sequencing System”). Their report shows that SaferSeqS is a major improvement over a now widely adopted method developed at Ludwig Johns Hopkins a decade a
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This news release, issued by Johns Hopkins Medicine, describes a novel targeted immunotherapy approach. This new approach employs bispecific antibodies to treat cancer by eliciting a Tcell response against mutated p53. The researchers used the Highly Automated Macromolecular Crystallography (AMX) and Frontier Microfocusing Macromolecular Crystallography (FMX) beamlines to characterize the molecular structure of the proteins. AMX and FMX are beamlines at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory. NSLS-II offers a comprehensive suite of life science research capabilities. Johns Hopkins media contacts: Amy Mone, 410-614-2915, amone@jhmi.edu, or Valerie Mehl, 410-614-2916, mehlva@jhmi.edu. Brookhaven Lab media contacts: Cara Laasch, 631-344-8458, laasch@bnl.gov or Peter Genzer, 631-344-3174, genzer@bnl.gov.
Two of the three research studies led by Jacqueline Douglass, M.D., Ph.D. candidate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Emily Han-Chung Hsiue, M.D., Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins report on a precision medicine immunotherapy approach that specifically kills cancer cells by targeting mutant protein fragments presented as antigens on the cancer cell surface.
Although common across cancer types, p53 mutations have not been successfully targeted with drugs. Genetic alterations in tumor suppressor genes often resulted in their functional inactivation. Traditional drugs are aimed at inhibiting proteins. Inhibiting an already inactivated tumor suppressor gene protein in cancer cells, therefore, is not a feasible approach, says Hsiue, lead author on the