"If we are successful in achieving our targets of bringing the CTC capture device and the CTC-based biomarker panels for cancer diagnosis and prognosis from the bench to the bedside, it will be a testimony of the massive support that SPRING Singapore has provided to technology enterprise for made-in-Singapore brands and inventions," says Dr Mo-Huang Li, CEO, CellSievo.

The team plans to develop a full range of automatic systems for the CTC research market. These include instruments for CTC isolation and enumeration. The systems will address the needs of a low cost, feasible system to provide high purity of intact circulating tumour cells for cancer research and clinical applications. Further ahead, the company plans to conduct cohort clinical validation of its systems and biomarker panels, in the final build-up to applying for health regulatory authorities' approval to market the products for in vitro cancer diagnostics.

The use of CTCs as a complementary and real-time liquid biopsy alternative for biomarker discovery and targeted therapeutic strategies is attracting much attention as a lot of research is taking place on understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms of cancer development, metastases and resistance to different therapies.

"CTCs should provide real-time information about a cancer patient, reflecting time-sensitive status of the cancer progression and imminent relapse of a patient. Furthermore, procurement of 5-10 mL of peripheral blood, which is required for CTC-based analysis, would be a relatively non-invasive procedure. Thus, CTC-based diagnostics has great potential in revolutionizing the current invasive tissue biopsy-based cancer diagnostics," says Associate Professor Evelyn S C Koay, director of Molecular Diagnosis Centre at NUH, and CellSievo's clinical collaborator.