How Johns Hopkins Inventors’ Vision for Early Cancer Detection Got a $2.1B Boost

· · 1 min read

Johns Hopkins researchers 

Nickolas Papadopoulos

Ken Kinzler

 and 

Bert Vogelstein

 have spent their careers working on ways not just to treat cancer but to detect it before it becomes a threat. The goal: a blood test for the earlier detection of cancer incorporated into routine medical care. Their dream is closer to reality thanks in part to a $2.15 billion acquisition of their company, Thrive Earlier Detection Corp., 

one year ago by Exact Sciences Corp.

, a global leader in cancer-detection testing.

The heart of the researchers’ work is the liquid biopsy, a test done on a blood sample to look for signals derived from cancer cells circulating in the blood. In 2011, they invented SafeSeqS, a next-generation gene sequencing technology that simultaneously and individually analyzed millions of DNA molecules to identify mutations in the bloodstream more accurately than other methods.

Read the full article at:

ventures.jhu.edu


BM

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