Dr Lucy Shewell from Institute of Glycomics. Credit Griffith University
The Victorian Cancer Biobank (VCB) has once again contributed to the development of a test technology for improving cancer diagnosis from biomarker discovery stage to commercialisation.
Professor Michael Jennings and his laboratory at Griffith University’s Institute of Glycomics, along with collaborators Prof James Patton and Prof A Patton at the University of Adelaide, have developed a novel technology for the early detection of various cancers including ovarian and breast cancer.
The technology is based on SubB2M, a protein designed by the researchers to bind specifically to Neu5Gc, a sugar found only on the surface of cancer cells. Professor Jennings showed that SubB2M was able to detect cancer in serum from breast and ovarian cancer patients with very high accuracy. The promising results attracted Melbourne-based BARD1 Life Sciences to acquire the worldwide licence for this technology in April 2020.
Since 2017, the VCB have supplied over 580 specimens to Prof Jennings’ laboratory for their critical work in discovery and development of the SubB2M technology. The VCB is currently also providing specimens to BARD1 to enable the commercial development of this technology as a SubB2M-based ELISA test kit for the worldwide market.