From the Lens of DNA Isolation: A Look Back At AACR

Editor’s note: Over 1.6 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed this year alone, according to the American Cancer Society. With it being the second most common cause of death in the US (heart disease is number one) cancer remains a field of study in which research is steadily advancing. Just take the perspective of Hannah Saunders, a developer of nucleic acid isolation kits for Thermo Fisher Scientific with extensive experience isolating circulating cell-free DNA. She shares with us her experience during last month’s AACR (American Association for Cancer Research) meeting in New Orleans.

Cell-free DNA offers cancer researchers the potential to develop new, non–invasive cancer detection and monitoring methods. Researchers are using Thermo Fisher’s MagMAX Cell-Free DNA Isolation Kit to isolate high quality cell-free DNA from plasma, serum and urine. The kit is scalable and offers options for manual usage or automation using the KingFisher Automated Purification System.

At AACR, I found two things that seemed to interest attendees most:

• Urine is moving to the forefront of liquid biopsy sample types and MagMAX Cell-Free DNA Isolation Kit’s flexibility and scalability enables researchers to work with this sample type as well. Often cell-free DNA in urine is very dilute, so we developed a protocol allowing the user to elute in as little as 10-15uL of volume. More details can be found in the MagMAX Cell-Free DNA Isolation Kit User Bulletin for Urine Samples.
• One of the most unique features of the MagMAX Cell-Free DNA Isolation Kit is the ability to enrich for cell-free DNA while minimizing contaminating genomic DNA in the eluate. This enables researchers to put more cell-free DNA into a downstream reaction with less competing background genomic DNA.

Furthermore, I encountered two conference attendees that were particularly happy about the gDNA reduction as it allowed them to use the much less expensive and more accessible K2EDTA blood collection tubes. They ran their first studies with a competitor kit and said they wished they had known about our kit when they first started. They expressed they would be using our MagMAX Cell-Free DNA Isolation Kit in the future based on the gDNA reduction data I was able to show them at AACR.

It was a wonderful opportunity to meet our customers in person and be able to chat with them at AACR.  This connection is valuable because they are researchers on the cutting edge of developing future cancer diagnosis and treatment tools. To be able to offer a tool like the MagMAX Cell-Free DNA Isolation Kit that meets their needs is a rewarding contribution to the goal that we work towards and echoes the AACR 2016 theme, “Delivering Cures Through Cancer Science.”

Sources:

Cancer.org

AACR.org

App Note: A complete next-generation sequencing workflow for circulating cell-free DNA isolation and analysis

Product: MagMAX Cell-Free DNA Isolation Kit

Learn More about Liquid Biopsy Workflows.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.