File photo: A University of Houston campus sign, photographed in 2006. Photo: Brian Reading / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped, resized and fitted. Adapted image: CC BY-SA 3.0.
A University of Houston researcher has received a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to move an experimental blood-test technology for liver cancer toward clinical testing.
The funding will support research into whether the light-based system can find signs of liver cancer in people at high risk for the disease and help monitor patients after treatment, the university said in its Nov. 12 announcement.
The NIH grant will fund development and testing. The university has not announced a blood test that is available for routine medical use.
Wei-Chuan Shih, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH's Cullen College of Engineering, is developing a chip that uses light to examine tiny particles released by cells into the bloodstream. Called exosomes, the particles carry material from the cells they came from. Researchers hope that material can reveal signs of cancer before the disease becomes harder to treat.
The planned work includes evaluating detection in high-risk patients and studying people with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma after liver transplants. That is the most common form of cancer that starts in the liver.
Looking for cancer's traces in blood
Shih's system is designed to isolate and examine individual exosomes directly from blood plasma without extensive purification. The chip has specially engineered surfaces that help researchers use light to detect and analyze the particles.
The aim is to find molecular signs of liver cancer that current screening may miss, particularly in its earliest stages. Researchers also hope the technology could eventually offer a less invasive way to monitor whether cancer has returned after treatment.
The university did not give a date when a test might become available or report clinical accuracy results from the newly funded work.
The latest award brings funding for Shih's technology to $8 million across three NIH grants and a grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. The $2.5 million is part of that total, not an additional sum on top of it.
The project is also part of UH Health's wider effort to bring together university researchers working on healthcare technology.
Source: University of Houston
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