Booth Id:
TMED078
Category:
Translational Medical Science
Year:
2025
Finalist Names:
Zheng, Audrey (School: North Allegheny Senior High School)
Abstract:
Pancreatic cancer is the “king of cancer” due to its aggressiveness and high lethality. Although it ranks 9th in incidence, it is the 4th leading cause of cancer-related death, and is projected to become the 2nd in US by 2030. A major problem? Late diagnosis. At stage I, the five-year survival can reach 84%, but it drops drastically to 3% if diagnosed at stage IV. Since early diagnosis is the key to winning the battle with pancreatic cancer, I developed a novel method for pancreatic cancer diagnosis that isolates pancreatic cancer-specific extracellular vesicles (EVs) from blood plasma to enable cancer mutation detection all from a simple blood draw. EVs are released by cancer cells even from early stages and EV-DNA contains the same mutations as the original cells. To isolate pancreatic cancer-specific EVs, I identified 3 pancreatic cancer-specific surface antigens through literature search. An antibody cocktail against these antigens was conjugated to magnetic nanobeads to isolate the pancreatic cancer-derived EVs from plasma. Purified EV-DNA was then analyzed for KRAS mutations, the driver mutation of pancreatic cancer, using droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR). In a cohort of 23 pancreatic cancer patients and 10 healthy donors, KRAS mutations were detected in all patients and one healthy donor. The overall assay achieved 100% sensitivity, 90% specificity, and 91.3% discrimination. In comparison, cancer in only 17 out of the same 23 patient samples was detected using the current industry standard method. This study develops a novel method for highly sensitive pancreatic cancer detection from plasma. Further refinement and large-scale clinical trials could advance this technology toward clinical use for early diagnosis and real-time treatment monitoring.
Awards Won: