Catherinn has entered into 2 research collaborations with the Cancer Research Institute Ghent (CRIG).

Catherinn aims at developing a blood test for monitoring small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients and screening of risk groups. Cells, including cancer cells, secrete Extracellular Vesicles (EV) in the blood stream. We use this phenomenon to detect mRNA encoding our SCLC proprietary biomarker via RT-PCR.  

Our collaboration with prof An Hendrix, CRIG expert in EV Research at the Laboratory of Experimental Cancer Research, Ghent Universityat, Belgium, consists of two parts. The first part is to demonstrate that our proprietary biomarker is present in SCLC cell lines by the EV extract method developed at the Ghent University.

The results show that indeed the SCLC cell line NCI-H82 shows EV secretion, and we could detect the biomarker protein in the vesicles. The Taqman RT-PCR analysis was carried out by Erasmus MC department of pathology.

“I am very pleased that we could successfully demonstrate that our SCLC biomarker was detected in the cell line”, says prof. Ben van der Zeijst (CSO), “next step is to repeat this test in plasma of SCLC patients”.