ONCOLIGHT responds to the demand of reliable, high-throughput, single-cell technologies for cancer subtype classification and for testing of cancer drugs or drug combinations is those cancer sub-types.
The Project of Origin CELLTANGLE RTI2018-099369-B-I00, titled Mechano-Inertial Phenotyping of Cancer Cells successfully developed instrumentation for the investigation of cell mechanics able to discriminate cancer cells from healthy cells by
means of new physical biomarkers, in particular mass, density and optical properties.
The present Proof-of-Concept Project ONCOLIGHT has the goal to advance the technology and methods obtained in CELLTANGLE from TRL3 (experimental proof of concept, done in CELLTANGLE) to TRL4 (technology validated in lab for the intended application) and starting the route to fully achieve TRL5 by transferring the technology to research and clinical oncologists. ONCOLIGHT will also accelerate the market entry of the results and technologies obtained and protected through the national and international patents derived from the aforementioned source project CELLTANGLE, as well as two new patents envisioned as a result of this Proof-of-concept project ONCOLIGHT.
The commercial innovation of the device lies in the following aspects: 1) A new concept of cell sorting: several physical parameters of cells measured in vivo. 2) A new technology: transparent hollow resonators allow the measurement of mass, density and optical properties of individual cells. Cells are measured in flow, at a rate of 300 cells/minute, making it a high-throughput technique. 3) Application to a targeted goal: breast cancer cell classification and follow-up of cancer drug effect through cell biophysical parameters.
The figures of merit of the optonanomechanical flow cytometer we aim at advancing towards commercialization will open the way for portable tests that could prove useful as a generally accepted technique for determining the health status of cells from blood samples (leukemia, circulating tumour cells) or from re-suspended solid biopsies of tissue. As an added innovation, the interaction of cell samples with the chemical environment can be studied in real time, so ONCOLIGHT devices will be a new single-cell in-vitro tool for the study of the effectiveness of drugs, as well as for the evaluation of their toxicity in human cells.
