Through advanced microengineering and nanotechnology, we have developed a proprietary microfluidic-based liquid biopsy device, the RUBYchip™ (PCT/EP2016/078406). This technology allows for the isolation of all types of CTCs, keeping them viable and enabling the analysis of their phenotypic, genetic and functional characteristics, enabling unprecedented frequent monitoring of cancer progression in a minimally invasive and cost-efficient way. Our chip isolates 70% of the very scarce CTCs from a 7.5mL blood sample of a cancer patient in less than 3 h and without the need of sample pre‐processing. This dramatic improvement in the sensitivity compared to competition is enabled by a unique microfilter network embedded in a microfluidic device that separates the CTCs from the healthy cells based on their size and deformability. Furthermore, the RUBYchip enables automation reducing inter-laboratory and inter-user dependence and ensuring reproducible analysis of CTCs.

PERSIST aims at developing an open and interoperable ecosystem to improve the care of cancer survivors. The key results to be achieved by partners are: increased self-efficacy and satisfaction with care as well as reduced psychological stress for a better management of the consequences of the cancer treatment and the disease, resulting in an improvement in health and wellbeing and a faster integration into the labour market, where applicable, compared to usual care (KR1); increased effectiveness in cancer treatment and follow-up by providing prediction models from Big Data that will support decision-making and contribute to optimal treatment decisions with positive consequences in the QoL and the health status of survivors (KR2); and improved information and evidence to advance the efficacy of management, intervention and prevention policies/strategies in order to timely treat side effects and, if possible, avoid secondary diseases and fatal events. The long-term result will be to reduce the socio-economic burden related to cancer survivors’ care (KR3). The ecosystem proposed consists of a Big Data platform to be built on top of an open infrastructure from one of the partners and a mHealth application for patients. The main building blocks to be developed are a multimodal sensing network running on a smart phone that will collect relevant data regarding the wellbeing of the patient; predictive models from anonymised health data from thousands of breast and colorectal patients; and modules essential for the development of a decision support system, which will employ the predictive models mentioned. Furthermore, PERSIST will contribute to establish evidence on the use of liquid biopsy techniques to the follow-up of cancer patients treated with curative purposes. A pilot study involving 160 patients and 32 health care professionals will be decisive to establish a co-creation methodology ranging from the earlies phases of the project throughout its conclusion.

BIOCELLPHE provides frontier scientific and technological advancements to generate a breakthrough technology realizing the identification of proteins (i.e. phenotyping) as diagnostic biomarkers at single-cell level with unmatched sensitivity, multiplexing capabilities and portability. BIOCELLPHE proposes the generation of engineered bacteria able to recognize and bind to specific protein targets on the surface of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) responsible for cancer metastasis, thereby triggering the production of chemical signals that can be detected simultaneously, and with extremely high sensitivity by surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). SERS is a powerful analytical technique that employs plasmonic nanoparticles as optical enhancers for ultrasensitive chemical analysis achieving single-molecule detection level. BIOCELLPHE will implement these advancements toward the generation of an optofluidic lab-on-a-chip SERS device enabling ultrasensitive identification and multiplex phenotyping of CTCs. We anticipate that BIOCELLPHE long-term vision and scientific breakthrough will lead to a sky limit technology that will be widely applicable, not only in the diagnostic arena, but also in many other applications (e.g. biomedical, environmental). No one has previously been able to attempt this vision due to current challenges and technical limitations, but we believe to be in a position to pave a way for achieving this now. To realize this highly ambitious project, BIOCELLPHE gathers a highly multidisciplinary community of leading experts in synthetic biology, nanotechnology, plasmonics, microfluidics, artificial intelligence, and cancer diagnosis. We believe that successful deployment of BIOCELLPHE has the potential to usher in a new era of medical diagnostics and it will provide new paradigms in biology and biomedicine, advancing frontier science and technologies at the European academic and industrial sectors.