Keep updated with the basic and advances in digital PCR through these webinars:
Clinical utility of digital PCR (dPCR) in liquid biopsy for the management of cancer
Date: September 22, 2022
Time: 8:00am (PDT), 11:00am (EDT), 5:00pm (CEST)
SPEAKER
Atocha Romero
Head of the Liquid Biopsy Laboratory at Hospital Universitario Puerta Hierro, Majadahonda, Spain
ABSTRACT
Liquid biopsies used to identify and track genetic mutationsin cancer patinets, enabling researchers to detect cancer early, measure therapeutic response, quantify residual tumor burden, and monitor emerging resistance to therapies. Liquid biopsies utilize cell-free DNA (cfDNA) that is derived from cells, both normal and cancerous, that have undergone apoptosis or necrosis and released their DNA contents into their environment. The component of cfDNA that is released from cancer cells is more commonly referred to as circulating tumor DNA, or ctDNA. dPCR has enabled the development of liquid biopsy-based approaches.
Join Dr. Atocha Romero in this webinar to learn about the analysis of ctDNA by dPCR, which has several clinical applications:
1) ctDNA genotyping can be used for non-invasive biomarker testing, which is especially relevant in lung cancer patients in whom tissue biopsies are difficult to obtain due to the anatomical location of the tumors and the advanced age of the patients. In this sense, ctDNA genotyping may expand the life expectancy of some cancer patients who are unable to undergo an invasive procedure by the identification of therapeutic targets.
2) ctDNA levels correlate well with tumor bulk. Therefore, ctDNA quantification over the course of the treatment can be used for narrow tumor response to treatment monitoring, as well as for early detection of resistance mutations.
3) ctDNA levels are of prognostic significance as ctDNA levels have been shown to correlate well with survival outcomes. In this sense, ctDNA levels may be used as an early endpoint surrogate in clinical trials.
Digital PCR basics
Date: September 22, 2022
Time: 10:00am (PDT), 1:00pm (EDT), 7:00pm (CEST)
SPEAKER
Dr. Dave Bauer, PhD
qPCR and dPCR Field Application Scientist, Thermo Fisher Scientific
ABSTRACT
Digital PCR (dPCR) is a specialized approach to nucleic acid detection and quantification that is not reliant on standard curves. Instead, the quantity or numbers of molecules present in a reaction is determined by digitizing a traditional bulk PCR reaction into many thousands of nanoliter-sized microreactions and then amplifying those reactions to endpoint. Absolute rather than relative quantification is achieved by counting the number of positive and negative microreactions at endpoint and applying simple statistical methods. While dPCR uses the same fundamental chemistry as qPCR, dPCR offers higher precision and improved precision when measuring rare targets, heightened sensitivity when testing highly heterogenous mixtures, and improved reproducibility for standard-curve free quantification. Join our technical expert Dr. Dave Bauer in this webinar which will cover the fundamental principles of digital PCR, discuss how it compares to and is complemented by real-time or quantitative PCR methods, and describe which use cases are well suited for digital PCR across common research areas such as cancer research, cell and gene therapy development, and environmental sample testing.
Learning Objectives
- Describe the fundamental concepts of digital PCR and how data are collected and used to provide absolute quantification
- Understand the advantages and complementarity of both dPCR and qPCR technologies
- Understand some of the more common use cases for dPCR across highlighted research areas