Trovagene (San Diego) sees an opportunity to transform cancer care through noninvasive genomic monitoring using cell-free DNA. Unlike other technologies that rely upon blood samples, Trovagene’s precision cancer monitoring technology can utilize urine samples to determine mutational status and to quantify response to treatment based upon dynamic shifts in mutational load. The platform allows for single-molecule analytical sensitivity with DNA inputs of up to 100,000 genome equivalents. DTET recently spoke with Trovagene CEO Antonius Schuh, Ph.D., to discuss the future of genomic monitoring of cancer patients. When looking at cell-free DNA, why is urine preferable to blood? Our focus is really cell-free DNA and we will extract and detect cell-free DNA in any specimen we get, including plasma or blood. However, we believe there are features associated with urine that make certain applications clinically much more feasible—most importantly, monitoring. There are monitoring applications where you need to acquire samples often. Our early clinical data indicates that you can observe changes within one week and, depending on the type of treatment, you can see indications informative of response within one day. When you are looking at higher-frequency sampling, blood becomes increasingly less feasible. Also, for all practical considerations, urine samples are […]