DCCC National Research Center for ctDNA Guided Cancer Treatment jobs and careers

About DCCC National Research Center for ctDNA Guided Cancer Treatment

The cancer field is lacking biomarkers for personalized risk-stratification. Consequently clinical practice today is dominated by “one size fits all” strategies e.g. for treatment- and post-treatment surveillance. This is often leading to massive overtreatment and a waste of resources following up non-relapsing patients. Circulating Tumor DNA Technological advances have recently enabled development of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) based strategies for personal risk assessment. The ctDNA is fragments of DNA shedded from the cancer cells as the tumor grows and develops. These DNA fragments have a short lifetime of only a few hours in the blood stream and thus if ctDNA can be detected in the blood, it is a very good real-time indicator of the presence and quantity of cancer cells in the body. Detection of ctDNA is rapidly emerging as an important and minimally invasive diagnostic approach, that can be applied to practically all body fluids. Several studies have shown that ctDNA analysis is more sensitive than conventional imagingin detecting cancer. This has opened up for new strategies to manage cancer, e.g. to screen for cancer in asymptomatic individuals, for monitoring response to cancer treatment, and for relapse surveillance. CtDNA also provides information about the cancer genome, including information about mutations and epigenetic patterns. This information can be used to guide therapy decisions. What is now needed are prospective clinical studies promoting the translation of the many promising ctDNA-based research results into clinical practice. National collaboration In January 2020 the National Danish ctDNA Research Center was established. The objective of the center is to provide an effective and vital framework for optimal implementation of evidence-based ctDNA usage in cancer patient management in Denmark.