Caris liquid biopsy lab offers option to traditional biopsies

Caris Life Sciences, a cancer diagnostic research firm, has developed a new form of biposy that is non-invasive.

We spoke about this with David Spetzler, Ph.D., the President and Chief Scientific Officer of Caris Life Sciences.

“So what we do is we take some blood and we look for the fragments that are coming from these cancer cells to identify whether a cancer exists within somebody or not. In that way we can identify the type of cancer and if somebody has cancer far earlier than existing technology today,” Spetzler said.

Caris believes that understanding cancer at the molecular level can lead to better treatment options. 

“You can see if the therapy that you are taking is working or not and if it’s having a desired effect. Is there an evolution of the cancer? Is it coming back now and you want to switch therapies? it gives us a window into whats happening in the human body,” Spetzler said.

This liquid biopsy lab will further expand the company’s molecular profiling capabilities. That includes tumor profiling and innovative blood-based cancer diagnostics.

The state-of-the-art lab can provide profiling on blood specimens for up to 1,500 patients per day.

Caris is known for developing methods of profiling specific molecules and protein biomarkers to help physicians more directly treat cancer patients. The company uses new AI and machine learning to identify cancer signals at the molecular level and predict patient response.

“The technology being so new, there’s also a lot of skepticism out there and that’s not unhealthy. Anytime theres a scientific breakthrough we need to make sure that we’re doing a good job og validating completely and throughly,” Spetzler said.

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