#2022034 – Improved direct tissue biopsy

Background and Need

Existing biopsies techniques have high rates of genotyping failure. Direct tissue biopsy is currently the gold standard for cancer diagnosis. However, this method has some limitations including high rates of genotyping failure due to technical issues such as insufficient tumor tissue, low tumor cellularity, low DNA quality or quantity, etc, and of course potential procedural complications.

Liquid biopsy is the analysis of tumor DNA and other components in the peripheral blood. It can be used in all cancer stages, including diagnosis, identification of druggable targets, monitoring and surveillance for micro-metastasis. However, tumor cells and tumor DNA levels are often undetectable in circulation.

Electroporation is a non-thermal technique that functions by increasing cell membrane permeability to allow the penetration of materials into the cells. To date, electroporation is used in medicine to introduce drugs into cancer cells. It is also a common method for cell transfection with genomic materials in biotechnology. electroporation is a common method for the insertion of materials into the cells.

Invention

The technology is an electroporation device for augmenting traditional tissue biopsy and liquid biopsy yield. Not only it will increase the biopsy yield, but it will also reduce procedural complications, as it will require a smaller tissue sample.