QCDx Announces Sale of the RareScope to the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at UConn Health for Use in Clinical Research


QCDx’s technology provides in-depth information for early cancer detection and treatment optimization for clinical trials of novel therapies and for companion diagnostic development

QCDx, a private biotech company that has developed a breakthrough Circulating Tumor Cell (CTC) liquid biopsy from a simple blood draw, today announced the sale of the proprietary RareScope™ instrument to the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at UConn Health. The Rare Scope will be used in clinical cancer research.

“The RareScope can detect and isolate intact and live Circulating Tumor Cells from a blood sample of a cancer patient after analyzing every single nucleated cell,” said Dr. Pramod K. Srivastava PhD MD, Director of the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at UConn Health and a world authority in cancer immunology. “We intend to use the ability of the RareScope to obtain a deep look into the genomes of cancer cells in patients undergoing standard-of-care and experimental treatments.”

“We are proud that the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at UConn Health has selected the RareScope as the optimal method to detect and immunologically characterize CTCs from patients in clinical studies of personalized therapeutics with potential to cure metastatic cancer,” said Dr. Triantafyllos (Fyl) Tafas, Founder and CEO of QCDx. “Our technology tackles the ultimate challenge presented by cancer continually changing in the patient’s body and often becoming resistant to a chosen therapy. With sensitive CTC detection and characterization, we aim to reveal early indications of disease progression and new molecular targets that can be used for real-time, personalized treatment.”

About CTC Liquid Biopsy: 
Cells from solid tumors enter the blood stream very early in the tumor development, become CTCs and eventually cause metastasis. Tumors are heterogeneous and CTCs reflect their different genetic profiles. Today, the standard practice for solid cancers detection are biopsies, which are invasive, cannot be used repeatedly and are ineffective in metastatic disease and assessing treatment effectiveness. CTC liquid biopsies from a simple blood draw can be repeated frequently to reveal the disease heterogeneity. The ultimate CTC diagnostic engine must accurately detect and characterize different CTC phenotypes from the original tumor and potential, metastatic sites. Additionally, isolate intact and live CTCs for downstream genomic, transcriptomic, epigenetic and other molecular analyses that can provide guidance for personalized and timely cancer treatment.

About UConn Health: 
UConn Health is Connecticut’s only public academic medical center. Based on a 206-acre campus in Farmington, UConn Health has a three-part mission: research, teaching and patient care. Home to the UConn School of Medicine, School of Dental Medicine and UConn John Dempsey Hospital with nearly 5,000 employees supporting nearly 1,000 students, over 800,000 annual patient visits, and innovative scientific research contributing to the advancement of medicine. For more information, visit health.uconn.edu.

About QCDx: 
QCDx develops, manufactures and markets tools and integrated systems to detect and monitor cancer at the single cell level. Our technology provides innovative solutions for analyzing all nucleated cells within a blood sample, in an immobilized, multi-million cell suspension, detects intact and live CTCs and isolates for downstream, single-cell molecular analyses. Our technology and products aim to accelerate cancer research and treatment and ultimately transforming healthcare.

For more information, visit http://www.qcd-x.com.

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