#United States #Maryland #Cancer Care #Nanocrine #RT-Chip

Nanocrine Unveils Game-Changing RT-Chip Technology in Cancer Care

In a groundbreaking development that has the potential to redefine cancer treatment, Nanocrine, a biotechnology startup based in Maryland, has introduced its RT-Chip™, a next-generation biosensor platform designed to observe tumor activity in real-time at the cellular level. This extraordinary advancement could pave the way for more personalized and adaptable cancer therapies.

The RT-Chip™ aims to address a significant challenge in oncological treatment—the difficulty of monitoring tumor response and interactions with therapies as they happen. According to Patrick Calhoun, Ph.D., the President and Chief Science Officer of Nanocrine, "We have overcome a major obstacle in cancer treatment: the inability to monitor how tumor cells interact and respond to therapies in real time." His excitement underscores the RT-Chip's unprecedented ability to capture the biological signature of tumors, offering the possibility of customizing treatment with remarkable accuracy.

Initially developed through collaborative efforts with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and further advanced by partnerships with experts at the National Institutes of Health and the Frederick Innovative Tech Center (FITCI), the RT-Chip will be presented at the upcoming American Society for Cell Biology annual conference scheduled for December 6 in Philadelphia.

"This innovation is a game-changer for the diagnosis, management, and treatment of cancer and other major diseases," reflects Kathie Callahan Brady, President/CEO of FITCI and advisor to Nanocrine.

Key Features of the RT-Chip™:

1. Real-Time Diagnostics: The platform facilitates quicker and more precise cancer diagnoses by revealing tumor spread at the molecular level.
2. Dynamic Drug Response Mapping: It enables clinicians to track cellular drug responses that traditional assays typically overlook, providing deeper insights into treatment efficacy.
3. Immune Interaction Analysis: The RT-Chip allows for the observation of how immune cells and engineered treatments interact with cancer cells, thus enhancing personalized immunotherapy strategies.
4. New Biomarker Identification: It offers the potential to identify new biomarkers associated with metastasis and immune resistance, leading to the development of more effective target therapies.

Dr. Calhoun announced the initiation of Nanocrine's Tumor Profiler services, designed to assist researchers in evaluating variations in therapeutic responses on a cellular basis. The potential of this technology could revolutionize drug development, allowing researchers to understand cellular signaling before it is too late for intervention.

The Honorable Tommy G. Thompson, former Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, stated, "With this technology, we finally have the potential to know what human cells are signaling to each other before it's too late to do anything about it. This can put drug development for known or unknown diseases into a new frontier of research and beyond."

There is a growing need for more reliable and efficient tools within biopharma, academic, and contract research sectors to expedite drug discovery and improve patient outcomes. Ken Wolf, a spokesperson for Nanocrine and a metastatic cancer survivor, commented, "The race to unlock the secrets inside malignancies just got a powerful new tool. This development advances the new era of precision oncology, where cancer is understood not simply as rogue cells, but as a complex, communicative ecosystem that can finally be better understood."

Building on its proprietary imaging technology, Nanocrine is also poised to introduce a series of new products targeting various disease areas, including wound healing and neurodegeneration. This promising leap in technology signifies a bright future for personalized medicine, where treatments are sculpted specifically to meet individual patient needs through detailed cellular insights.