Precision medicine, as name suggests, targets patient or patient group precisely based on genetic information rather than traditional method of treatment that is based on concept of ‘one-size – fits all’. With science and technology development, scientists can get a much clearer picture of underlying molecular biology and mechanisms thereby targeting diseases in a more tailored manner.
Precision medicine does not only provides customized treatment, but also predicts and prevents disease onset if diagnosed early. The information gathered from patients or healthy individuals are processed, analyzed and classified to offer an appropriate treatment to patients thus ensuring cost-effective, time saving treatment and preventing the risk of off-target complications.
In oncology for instance, precision medicine can outsmart cancer if/when diagnosed on time. Molecular profiling of patient’s sample provides evidence on genetic alterations thereby providing targeted treatment at the correct time rather than giving a general treatment. One of the biggest challenges of precision medicine is sample collection. Sample collection is usually done in an invasive way (tissue biopsies). Depending on organ type and patient condition, getting a good tissue biopsy can be challenging. Moreover, to do a tissue biopsy for a wide-study population is expensive, time consuming, requires well dedicated facility and qualified professionals.
In contrast, liquid biopsies offer several advantages including being minimally invasive, less expensive, short processing time, low failure rate, high tolerance during treatment, ease of determination of tissue heterogeneity and is relatively quite easy to monitor during treatment. Taken together, with just a few milliliters of liquid samples doctors and scientist can get hold of patient’s molecular signature thereby presenting patient with suitable treatment options.
Nordic Biosite is proud to collaborate with Norgen Biotek in their research on making sample collection for liquid biopsy easy and cost effective thereby enhancing precision medicine. In any kind of biopsies or sample collection a major constrain is storage condition. Depending on the analysis, researchers might need a cold storage or cold-chain transportation that can be challenging at times. Moreover, another limitation is the compatibility of the samples for downstream application.
Norgen Biotek offers a user-friendly solution to all your needs and have classified them into the following categories :
- Sample collection and preservation
- Purification & isolation
- Downstream application
They made the workflow smooth and efficient by offering several solutions for researchers. Sample collection and preservation is a crucial step that drives to a successful diagnosis. A contaminated or degraded sample can affect the research and diagnosis negatively. Therefore, it is very important to know your samples and what kinds of sample collection tubes/ consumable should be employed for the research. For example, cf-DNA/cf-RNA Preservative Tube from Norgen Biotek is suitable for preservation and stabilization of cf-DNA and cf-RNA in blood samples and can be stored at room temperature for 30 days. The tubes are available both for research purpose and diagnostic use. You can also read about all the sample collection products Nordic Biosite offers here :
After successful sample collection, the next step is to purify and isolate genetic content (cf-DNA, cf-RNA or exosomes) in order to perform assays to understand the molecular signature. Yet again, Norgen Biotek offers several kits that one can use for their research including cf- DNA purification kits, cf-RNA purification kits, Exosome purification and RNA isolation kits and Multi-analyte purification kits. Taken together, Norgen Biotek is one hot spot equipping you with all the required kits and consumables for your precision medicine research and Nordic Biosite proudly partners them in their venture. You can read more about our products for liquid biopsies here :
Article by Jayasankar Kaimal